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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

MOVIE REVIEW 300: Rise Of An Empire
Sex, War And Lots Of Headless Bodies In Bloody Waters

Eva Green as Artemisia in "300: Rise Of An Empire", directed by Noam Murro.  Warner Brothers
       
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
A theatre of blood, "300: Rise Of An Empire", the follow-up to Zack Snyder's "300", is almost non-stop red, its story about Persian naval leader Artemisia (Eva Green) leading a charge in the war against Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton, "Animal Kingdom"), who seeks to unite the nation without support from Spartan Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey).  Frank Miller's graphic novel "Xerxes" is the basis for the new film, directed by Noam Murro.

"Rise Of An Empire" plays like a video game with a body count worse than "Call Of Duty".  Choreographed like a ballet, the action film is executed with blunt precision, with beheadings and slayings as gruesome punctuation marks.  Blood, the film's prevailing character, splatters and floats like a butterfly across the screen in slow-motion "Matrix" style.  You can even see the molecules if you look closely enough.  Mr. Murro's film is pure fetish art and gratuitous spectacle.

On the big screen war provides an opportunity for bloodlust and the lurid.  War, after all, is these things and more.  The hatreds between the Greeks and Persians in the 5th Century B.C. allow Mr. Murro every opportunity to indulge in a viscera that doesn't submerge the film's clunky, formulaic rhythms and Ms. Headey's misplaced narration.  The film's weak dialogue is written by Mr. Snyder and Kurt Johnstad.

Mr. Murro's "Rise Of An Empire", which contrasts black-gray Goth gloom with golden tones, isn't a total disaster though.  Its chief problem is it has too many characters to juggle.  Some, including Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), are ceremonial when they should have a greater role.  Xerxes, the god king, formerly a warrior in the Persian navy, is sidelined, preening and posing more than he did in Mr. Snyder's film.

If anyone rises above this bloody mess it is Ms. Green, who sinks her teeth into Artemisia with a charm, danger and delectability that keeps you watching (and rooting for her.)  As the villain the actress grabs the stage and takes complete command of it the way villains often do.  Ms. Green is sexy, ruthless and uncompromising.  Irresistible, she delivers the film's best line, a distinctly memorable one. 

Ms. Green however, is the fulcrum of the film's time immemorial selling points: sex and violence.  She gives as good as she gets, and is in the thick of the fighting as an indefatigable warrior.  Artemisia bares her bosom and dances a dance of sex and death with Themistokles.  The violence is the sex, and the sex is the violence.  On another note, one of the opening images "300: Rise Of An Empire" is of a restrained woman's breasts bouncing in slow-motion.  We see breasts before we see the face of the woman they belong to.  (Actually I don't think the face was ever shown at all.)

Everybody in "300: Rise Of An Empire" is too pretty for war.  To sell war in cinema these days it appears the M.O. of every director and casting director is to beautify actors for their inevitable celluloid slaughter.  Much about "300: Rise Of An Empire" has a pristine albeit rugged brutality.  Despite the abundance of death everything is just too neat.  It's a Hollywood war, or Hollywar, that shimmers but doesn't shake.

Also with: David Wenham, Andrew Tiernan, Andrew Pleavin.

"300: Rise Of An Empire" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for strong sustained sequences of stylized bloody violence throughout, a sex scene, nudity and some language.  The film's running time is one hour and 37 minutes.

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