One star. Rated R, for constant gory violence, nudity, profanity and a hilarious sex scene
By Derrick Bang
In case anybody has wondered, two
hours of gore-porn is a total yawn.
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| Impressed by the battlefield savvy demonstrated by her enemy, Artemisia (Eva Green) offers Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) a place at the head of her own army ... and, as an added inducement, a place in her bed. Will this Athenian commander succumb to such temptation? Do we care in the slightest? |
Director Noam Murro hasn’t the
slightest affinity for this material: no surprise, since his only previous
big-screen credit is the 2008 comedy bomb, Smart
People. I can’t imagine what led Warner Bros. to trust Murro with the
sequel to 2006’s unexpectedly popular 300,
but, then, I rarely understand what transpires in big-studio pitch meetings.
Not that Murro should shoulder
all the blame, with so much to spread around. I doubt any director could have
made much of the wafer-thin narrative that scripters Zack Snyder and Kurt
Johnstad audaciously call a screenplay. I always thought writers endeavored to
create characters whose thoughts and deeds would engage our emotions, but
Snyder and Johnstad apparently believe the same can be accomplished with
another splash of blood on the screen.
Not hardly.
Indeed, it’s difficult to
remember anything else taking place during this flimsy excuse for a movie.
Occasional scenes of stilted, woodenly acted dialogue aside, 300: Rise of an Empire is 102 minutes of
disembowelments, severed limbs and decapitations, seasoned with some slashed
throats and pierced eyeballs. And most of the interminable battle scenes are
filmed in loving slow-motion by cinematographer Simon Duggan, with the gallons
of splattered blood inserted later, via CGI sweetening.
If all the melees and close-up
hacking and slashing were projected at normal speed, this film probably
wouldn’t run more than half an hour. Which would be a good thing.
As an added bonus, this film’s 3D
effects were added after the fact, contributing to the overall murky pallor
that hangs over every frame. As was the case with Clash of the Titans and numerous other “fake 3D” efforts, many
sequences are so dark that it’s difficult to discern what the heck is
happening. Call that an unintentional blessing.
As adapted clumsily from Frank
Miller’s graphic novel Xerxes —
itself a sequel to his graphic novel 300
— this story occurs during the aftermath of the great battle that took place at
Thermopylae in 480 B.C., when King Leonidas and his “brave 300” gloriously
battled a much larger Persian army to a standstill. For a time.
That huge Persian force was
commanded by the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), a cruel and petulant ruler
whose revenge-fueled reason for invading Greece is detailed in this new film’s
first act: a flashback that sets up this saga’s new hero, Themistokles (Sullivan
Stapleton), an Athenian warrior who previously handed the Persians an
embarrassing defeat that is witnessed by a younger Xerxes.
Returning home to sulk, the
malleable Xerxes is transformed into his more powerful form by the machinations
of the warrior Artemisia (Eva Green), who has her own reasons for hating the
Greeks (cue another flashback). So, Xerxes eventually destroys Leonidas’
defending Spartans, thanks to the Shakespearean-style betrayal by a traitorous
Greek hunchback, and now — as this film returns to its “present” — threatens to
pillage and burn all of Greece to the ground.
The only thing in Xerxes’ way: an
equally outnumbered Athenian naval force, with which Themistokles intends to
hold off Artemisia’s superior Persian navy, until ... well, therein lies the
nub of our hero’s mad gambit. Themistokles has long nurtured a desire to unite
all the Greek city-states, a goal contemptuously rebuffed by Leonidas’ wife,
Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), pre-Thermopylae.
Now, in the immediate wake of Leonidas’
brave but ultimately futile last stand, Themistokles hopes to delay the
Persians long enough for Queen Gorgo to come to her senses, stoking a desire
for revenge that will, finally, bring isolationist Sparta into the greater
Greek fold.
This certainly sounds like the set-up for a tense and
exciting war film, but nothing on screen is anywhere near as interesting as the
few paragraphs you’ve just read. Murro, Snyder and Johnstad squander this
no-doubt-fascinating historical battle with a laughably tiny cadre of
one-dimensional characters who haven’t an ounce of back-story between them.
Themistokles suffers guilt
because he failed to kill young Xerxes, back in the day, when given the
opportunity (although, as recounted during the aforementioned flashback, it’s
difficult to see how Themistokles could
have done so). Aeskylos (Hans Matheson) is Themistokles’ staunchest friend and
ally. Scyllias (Callan Mulvey) is Themistokles’ other staunchest friend and
ally. Scyllias doesn’t want his son, Calisto (Jack O’Connell) to be part of the
Athenians’ suicidal stand against the Persians ... but of course the headstrong
young man insists on joining the fun.
That’s it, folks: That’s all we
get in the way of characterization, from any of these Athenians. David Wenham enjoys
a bit of screen time as the handsome Dilios, but he may as well have the phrase
“sacrificial lamb” tattooed on his buff chest.
All the rest of the Athenian
soldiers, and all of the Persians,
are faceless chunks of meat being led to slaughter. Could we possibly care less
about any of them?
Nope.
Nor do we think much of
Themistokles, Aeskylos, Scyllias and Calisto. The actors playing those roles
don’t do much to win our hearts and minds, although — in fairness — the script
doesn’t give them anything to work with. Bare chests, grim expressions and
terse, single-sentence “conversations” are all we get.
Headey delivers a bit more juice
as the arrogant and contemptuous Queen Gorgo, although this character seems a
pale imitation of the actress’ far better crafted Cersei Lannister, in TV’s Game of Thrones. Santoro mostly stands
and scowls, giving us little of the ferocity that made Xerxes so powerful in 300.
Artemisia is by far this film’s
best and most interesting character, and Green is the only performer to inject
some genuine life into her part. She seems to understand that one shouldn’t
take this material too seriously; Artemisia’s smirky air of superiority is the
only saving grace in this otherwise tedious exercise in thud and blunder.
Until, that is, a plot
contrivance grants Themistokles and Artemisia an extravagant sex scene that’s
just as laughably overblown as the infamous swimming pool coupling between
Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle MacLachlan, in 1995’s Showgirls. No film could recover from such atrocious nonsense, but
of course this one’s DOA long before Green bares her breasts.
As with 300, which Snyder directed to somewhat better effect, only the
actors are real here; the sets and backgrounds are CGI concoctions by visual
effects supervisors Richard Hollander and John Desjardin. And, as was the case
with 300, this so-called “heightened
reality” actually has the opposite effect, putting these characters into a
patently false environment that makes it harder to connect with anything or
anybody.
But 300, at least, took greater advantage of this technology by giving
us some genuine monsters and fantasy-laden elements. This sequel rather oddly
plays down the supernatural content, instead concentrating on real world-style
naval battles and sword-and-shield combat. Which begs the question: Why bother
with so much CGI, when authentic settings would have better engaged our
emotions?
In a word, 300: Rise of an Empire is a mess. It’s dull, tedious and wholly
uninvolving, capable of doing nothing but hurling grue at the camera, like a
bored child repeatedly pounding the same single note on a piano.
This is the sort of junk that
gives CGI filmmaking a very, very bad
name.
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