This isn’t a world steeped in reality and accordingly everyone looks like a god: bronzed bodies, milk-skinned women and Xerxes in all his golden, Accessorized splendour.Īction scenes move along at a fair old lick, the camera whizzing its way around, settling on a scuffle just long enough to see someone get stabbed in the face. There’s probably more blood and limbs splattering onto the screen than dialogue, and aside from a dodgy shot of Themistokles ( Strike Back’s Sullivan Stapleton, somewhat dead-eyed) riding a horse across a splintering ship, everything looks glossy and seamless. Although you will have seen many action films set during a point of time in history (this one's set in 480 BC), there is plenty in here to keep your attention from start to finish.Set alongside the events of Zack Snyder’s 2006 movie, the sequel to 300 focuses on Greek general Thermistokles as he tries to take down Persian forces led by god Xerxes and his right hand woman Artemisia.ģ00: Rise of an Empire continues the ultra violence and stylised visual effects that made 300 great. The film itself looks fantastic, awash in a red-sepia tone that dominates everything. Part-vamp and part-warrior princess in leather, Green is stunning as Artemisia.

The blood and gore is off the scale warriors are hacked and cleaved in glorious CGI detail. Xerxes himself, looking like he has emerged from a gold bath and resplendent in various piercings, is relegated to a few booming sentences. He shows his resolve when mustering the Greek forces with lines like, 'We choose to die on our feet rather than live on our knees!' But is he immune to Artemisia's female charms or will those prove to be his Achilles heel? Yet, he knows that each of them would have to, if need be, make the ultimate sacrifice to save 'Mother Greece'. Themistocles, although lacking the crazed blood-lust that drove Leonidas, is weary of war. Artemisia realises that she has an equal in strategy and cunning, against whom overwhelming force and superior numbers alone won't work. Indeed, the Persian navy splinters the Greek galleys, until they come up against Themistocles. Artemisia is a determined commander, who doesn't think much of her adversaries, clad in sandals and capes.

300 rise of an empire movie cast