Director Noam Murro
Starring Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey
Rated MA
Score 5/6

Greek general Themistokles leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy.

You might want to ignore some of the reviews from some of the major metropolitan newspapers for 300 Rise of an Empire. Particularly Mr Paul Byrnes who says that 300 rise of an empire jettisons historical accuracy for sex and violence. I suppose the only historical fact that may have been jettisoned was the fact that the Greeks actually did wear armour, apart from that it opinion of this humble film critic that the filmmakers got the overall brush strokes of what happened at the Battle of Thermopylae correct. Now considering that this movie and the 2006 movie release ‘300’ are based on the works of Mr Frank Miller I think that it is a bit much for anybody to demand pinpoint historical accuracy of these movies. To those people I paraphrase a line from the theme song to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 it’s just a movie relax.

Now I could get angry at the film makers for shifting the directing duties from Zack Snyder to Noam Murro. But Murro actually did a good job he brought a more realistic feel to the story as opposed to the ‘terrors from the unknown parts of the Persian Empire’ that Snyder delivered back in ’06. The filmmakers did something with overall story Rise of an Empire because it is just not a simple sequel to 300 but it also serves as its prequel telling the story of how Xerxes became the Emperor of the Persian Empire. It would have been good to see some of the story elements from 300 gel up a little better with the end of Rise of Empire. But I suppose should there ever be a sequel, they’ll be addressed there.
It was good to see that actors from 300 reprise their roles, Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton get the lead role and a familiar face that I first remember watching on TV back in 1999 ( though I have to admit that he has slipped by in a that I have reviewed last year unnoticed).
I loved Eva Green’s performance as Artemisia while watching her on screen it momentarily slipped my mind that she had portrayed Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale because I thought that with a performance like that she would make an excellent Bond Villain.