300: Rise of an Empire

This weekend was just as it promised to be - pleasant, quiet and slightly cheaper than the last few weekends of copious drinking have turned out to be.

Thursday and Friday night were chill time movie nights.  Thursday we watched The Social Network which was actually a far better film than I expected it to be; the amazing work of Trent Reznor's soundtrack did help it along a little though.  I was pleasantly surprised by it to be honest. 
Friday night's film I have already forgotten so it can't have been that good. It might have been one called Ghostship, which was just averagely dull in every possible way.

Saturday night however, was what I had been looking forward to as I went to see 300: Rise of an Empire.

I had set my expectations fairly low as 300 is one of my all time favourite films and the sequel couldn't possibly match the skill or impact of the first.  It didn't.  However I was surprised to find it wasn't at all as bad as I had anticipated.

In 300, the Spartan warriors wear red robes; Red, the colour of blood, lust, passion.  This is set apart by the golden tones of the film signifying gold, honour, sunlight and warmth.  In 300 ROAE the main character Themistocles and his counterparts adorn blue robes reflecting the cooler tone of this film and echoing both the oceans and stormy weather in the film.  This, for me, summarises it perfectly because on the whole the film is just that- less warming then the first.  It's stormy, and for me, the characters lack any capacity to evoke empathy in the viewer.  Themistocles is a cool and unemotional character lacking any real depth.  He failed to arouse the same kind of passion that Leonidas did in the first film; having no family or a lover to protect.  He is cold and almost robotic and the unnecessary border-line rape scene simply left me losing even more respect for him.  You fought with Leonidas, you wanted him to return to his Queen and sons; but Themistocles, you just kind of watched as he carried out his business with little reason.  I possibly felt more for Artemisia than I did for Themistocles; she had a story, a history and she had passion. Their power struggle was awkward instead of firey and I did feel glad that Themistocles was still left needing the help of a strong, powerful woman in the way of Queen Gorgo who proved she had far more balls than he did.

Visually, it lacked the punch that 300 made.  This was a new area though when 300 was first released, there had only been Sin City which had been filmed under the same concept.  There were still some nice sequences and shots, but the attention to detail that 300 had wasn't there.  Every shot in 300 is carefully composed, and in ROAE it's more of a general feel than that of careful consideration of compositions and cinematography.  Still, some nice work and nice effects which were made more impressive by the three dimensional aspect.

Ah. I now await some other good films to fill the void - Transcendence is looking interesting so that will be my next movie target for April.

Sunday morning I was treated to pancakes for breakfast. I've washed little Franko, been to the gym; been to Mum's for a slap up, post-workout roast dinner and I've also been up in their loft to retrieve lots of props for the party next weekend.

It's going to be GOOOOOD. :)

Laters!