New director Noam Murro swings off on a narrative tangent as he tackles the Battle of Artemisium, a skirmish that happened at sea while Leonidas and the Spartans were facing down the Persians at the Hot Gates of Thermopylae. How you feel about Rise of an Empire will likely depend on if you liked its predecessor, but what's hard to argue against is the fact that this follow-up lacks the memorable hero and blunt-force one-liners that marked the 2007 outing. To some the first 300 is visceral graphic novel entertainment writ large on the big screen, to others it's a visually dazzling empty vessel (this reviewer leans to the latter). More violence! More action! More nudity! None of this can compensate for the dearth of emotional engagement on show in Kurt Johnstad and Zack Snyder's script. What's strange is that this is a rare moment of restraint in a film that goes OTT, striving so hard to outdo its predecessor yet ultimately coming up short. The iconic line "this is Sparta" gets a sole outing in belated sequel 300: Rise of an Empire, but it's muted and uttered almost under the breath of Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo.
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