I have a troubled relationship with Zack Snyder, sort of
like an apologetic parent. Of his cinematic oeuvre300 was a standout; something that took the source material and
actually did a few new and interesting things with it. Then Watchmen (which did nothing new) and Sucker Punch (which did lots of things,
most of them wrong) made me have to apologize on his behalf, hoping that the
next thing he did actually meant something and was something I could be proud
of him for. Then he made Man of Steel,
which I absolutely loved and have chosen to defend against the horrible and
undeserved critical kicking it was given. So now the dust has settled, and his
new work 300: Rise of an Empire is
here.
First of all, let me get this out of the way: Zack can only
be held accountable for one of this films’ problems, namely the writing.
Besides that, I absolve him of blame for everything else that contributes to
the head-ache-inducingly dull ‘gorefest’ that is this movie. The whole ‘slo-mo’
trick mid-way through a fight sequence was fairly inventive and interesting
back in 2007, but here it is just plastered over every single sword fight. A
characters’ every other slash will suddenly turn into a tortuously long and
over-drawn mixture of angry facial expressions and spurting blood with all the
speed of a slightly tired snail.
Even the blood itself is dull (which is saying something,
because there is a literal tidal wave of it in the movie) and is all done in
CGI so unconvincing it looks more like a digital simulation of raspberry jam.
The whole gimmick of a slow-motion sword stroke followed by gushing of blood
over the camera means that every battle sequence (of which there are too many)
becomes repetitive and boring very, very quickly, almost to the point of sending
me to sleep. There could be something to be said about the comic-book
aesthetic, but sadly since the visual treat of 300, they’ve turned it up to eleventy-stupid, with every battle
accompanied by at least two thunderstorms, lightning cracking the sky every
three seconds.
The dialogue too is pretty ropey, a mixture of overly
masculine shouting, very loud and boring speeches apparently designed to rouse
the men, and Eva Green’s Darth Vader-esque growling and grumbling (consisting
of entire lines pinched from Return of
the Jedi). All this however, is preferable to our lead character,
Themistokles (newcomer Sullivan Stapleton) who has the all the charisma of Shia
LaBeouf without any of the talent. The lack of talent in the acting can also be
heard in the incessantly pounding musical score in which composer Junkie XL has
decided to steal his friend Hans Zimmer’s score to Man of Steel and remove the brass section completely, leaving
behind a nonsensical barrage of drums that contributes nothing.
The narrative follows Themistokles and his men as they
battle Xerxes’ navy whilst the Spartans battle the Persians at Thermopylae. As
this takes place alongside that of 300,
the two stories are interwoven with a certain degree of panache, although the
few shots we do see of Gerard Butler as Leonidas just makes me miss his camp,
oil-slickened presence even more. Also returning from the previous film is Lena
Headey as the Spartan queen, her experience from Game of Thrones making her much more believable as the headstrong leader
of a warrior race than before.
300: Rise of an Empire
is a mess of blood and swords and shouting and a whole pile of narrative
missteps (including perhaps the most ill-judged sex-scene in film this decade)
which does nothing to add to the original and serves only to remind us how fun
it was. Zack, I await Man of Steel 2
with narrowed eyes.
1.5 Stars
1.5 Stars
