300: Rise of an Empire

There was a point in my life when I would always sneak a 40oz or two into the theater via my surrogate girlfriend's gigantic purse; partly because I was a borderline lush and partly because I was forced to see terrible movies like What Dreams May Come or Notting Hill. This trend briefly continued when I moved to Austin but I think it finally came to an end when I saw Fernando Meirelles' (City of God, Constant Gardener) career ending failure Blindness. I'm sorry but fat blind guys running a human trafficking ring is even more depressing when you're drunk. So needless to say, I was also a bit tipsy during the first 300 when I saw it in the theater. The only things I remembered when I walked out of it were a tall bi-sexual looking Xerces, oiled up and in shape men who did a lot of screaming, and the lady from Game of Thrones literally and figuratively getting boned by some scrub with a perm. I'm actually afraid to see it again for fear that it won't be nearly as fresh as I remember.

But thankfully Lena Headey gives you a little recap before they jump right into the movie. She also explains what originally started the conflict in the first place; and it basically has to do with Greece fighting for it's freedom from the Persians and Xerces looking to get revenge on Themistokles for killing his father in battle. So you are taken through the transformation of Xerces the human to Xerces the half god; and you see him wage war on all of Greece with the hopes of burning it all to the ground. He enlists the help of his father's fearsome and beautiful naval commander Eva Green to help him in this quest. Now this easily becomes the best part of the movie because she looks like a goth girl who is rolling and as you would expect from Green, she gets naked at the drop of a hat. However the only complaint I have about that is that it was in one of the weirdest sex scenes you will ever see. I'll leave the particulars of it for you to experience on your own but just know that only Zach Snyder (writer) could make you feel awkward about seeing Eva Green naked. You also briefly see a few clips of a cgi Gerard Butler as the original story simultaneously takes place during this sequel.

Outside of that, there really isn't much to the plot. There are a few random battles that take place at sea with terrible uninspiring dialogue in between. And during these battles it is full of blood splattering cgi and swords that are so sharp they can apparently cut through flesh and bone with one swing. The first half of the movie was a little boring for me because I'm not the roided up weight lifter who secretly wants to get into fights all of the time. So all of the macho grandstanding kind of fell flat with me. Also, I thought that some of the background stories on a few of the characters seemed a bit too much; kind of like they were fishing for shock value more than anything else. But I could just be getting old.

Once the giant fire starter beast showed up, the movie took it up a notch from an entertainment perspective. The trash talking got better and they finally decided to do some cool stuff with all the money they spent on the cgi. I actually finally cared about what was happening to the characters on screen and I caught myself saying out loud "whoa, that was cool!"

In the end, this movie wont change the world or anything but if you are looking for a 2 hour escape into the world blood and boobs; then do yourself a favor and check it out! I rate this movie as barely FRESH!