Atmospherical fighting, hectoliters of
CGI blood and an army of men lacking any reasonable armor – that's 300, which
was a surprising commercial success back in 2007.Its second part aims to be bigger, better, and prettier - but does it have what it takes to beat its predecessor?
Zack Snyder is a director, whose movies
aren't particularly liked by movie critics or reviewers, while they
often become legends of their own, with lots of the common people
actually liking them. Now – don't worry, I know this movie wasn't
made by Snyder, but it's a movie constructed around the feel of the
original film, and thus, it very much resembles his style of
directing.
My point is, that while this movie isn't probably going to get very high percentages on Metacritics, it's probably going to make a name for itself for the years to come, and I'll probably catch myself watching this couple of years later with a bunch of friends as one of the classic guilty pleasure films we all like to watch, even if we don't admit it. But let's talk about the content itself.
This film, as you should probably know,
isn't a sequel, or a prequel; it's a movie going paralell with the
original, beginning before it and ending after it, focusing on the
battles fought by Athenians on sea, clashing with a much vaster
Persian fleet.
In the first half, I actually felt like
I was watching a bluer 300, only with a different leader, villain and
a handful of ships instead of a handful of soldiers. As the movie
progressed, however, the story actually grew up on me, with the
experience being more relatable than the death and glory driven
vigilance of Spartan warriors. Themistokles, while he lacks the sheer
dominance or charisma of Gerard Butler, is, I felt, a much more
relatable than him, more resembling a normal, experienced soldier
instead of... well, the black bearded war machine that was Leonidas.
The character you will probably end up
remembering the most as you walk out of the cinema, is the Persian
navy general, Arthemisia. Eva Green plays at her absolute best in
this role, stealing focus in every scene she is in with her acting, and with her beatiful body as well. She's one of the villains that you
actually love to hate; I often caught myself favouring her over the
boring Greek soldiers.
Other actors are far behind her in
terms of acting, I'm afraid; but that's not to say they are bad by
any means. Sullivan Stapleton as Themistokles is quite a good actor,
and you can see it on him, but his character quite reminded me of
Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings; he is not actually showing many emotions, and when he does, it doesn't seem quite right. Other actors didn't have a lot of screen time in this movie, but both Lena Hadey as Gorgo and Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes were not bad.
The CGI effects I must criticize, to be
honest. While they are amazing and I am constantly dropping my jaw
over the level of current technology, for a 100 million USD movie,
there were some unnecessary flaws; mainly the blood, which well, was even better
in the original 300, resembling now maroon-colored jam; and some of
the fire effects were quite flat and unrealistical looking. I know
it's not easy to create these, but I think even Avatar had better in
2008. Other than that, the movie looks amazing.
Conclusion: 8/10
I was actually surprised; this film is
much better than I expected it to be, portraying the atmosphere of
the original 300 very well and even surpassing it in certain parts. I would not
recommend this movie to people expecting deep characters and clever
storytelling; you'll find none. But if you don't expect this to be
anything more than a guilty pleasure, history-raping, plain fun
experience, you'll probably very much enjoy the ride.
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