300: Rise of an Empire parallels the events of the first movie, 300. Athenian Themistokles makes a name for himself before the events of the Spartan 300 by defeating the Persians and killing King Darius (as mentioned above, King Darius did not die in this battle). The movie then jumps forward to the naval battles between the Greeks and Persians that occur during the events of the original movie. As with the land battle in the original movie, the Greeks are severely outnumbered on the sea. In fact, during the initial naval confrontations, the Persians are okay with their loses as they know they can take a few losses just as long as the Greeks take their lumps, also.This movie has its moments though over-all it is a movie that one could have skipped at the theater and watched instead via HBO or Redbox or Netflix or whatever other source. The moments that this movie does have are grand. Eva Green as Artemisia is a joy to watch. She's out there for vengeance and it shows when she goes up against Themistokles. I also love her utter disdain of her naval officers as they fail to have the strategic skills that can be seen in Themistokles. And both the steamy sex scene and battle confrontation between Artemisia and Themistokles is just pure eye candy (well, maybe a sword fight isn't considered eye candy, but it does rank up there as an intense struggle).
The problem is that the interaction between Artemisia and Themistokles are so intense that it makes the rest of the movie feel inferior. Maybe there is just something more interesting about a land battle versus a naval battle (maybe why the original 300 seems like a superior movie); however, I do admit I found it fascinating watching the Greek naval strategies play out.
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