300 wasn't the best movie ever, but for super-masculine, action spectacle, well, you couldn't really go wrong. So whilst Zack Snyder moved on to other, more important things such as Watchmen and Man Of Steel in the wake of that movie's success, the inevitable sequel to 300 found its way to director Noam Murro, who you've definitely never heard of. The results, then, were mostly poor, as this unnecessary follow-up fails to give much of a good reason as to why we even needed to see it. There are a few moments of gloriously-rendered violence, of course, and a particularly arousing scene featuring the likes of a naked Eva Green. But even that unforgettable instance of cinematic perversion doesn't justify the price of a ticket (which means the movie must be pretty darn awful). You might admire the filmmaker's intentions, or the visuals, but as a package, 300: Rise Of An Empire feels only half-developed: a stronger story and better developed characters would have gone a long way.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
