Rating: R
Release Date: March 7, 2014
Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, and Rodrigo Santoro
Director: Noam Murro
Studio: Warner Brothers
Genre: Bloodcurdling Blockbuster-Turned-Testosterone Turkey
Recommendation: 2 out of 5 Abs Of Steel
Preposterously bicep’d and bare-chested and blood-soaked to the point of making every lifelong action-movie fanboy’s prick stand straight up at attention, Zack Snyder’s fan-fave from 2006, 300, has been cinematically circumcised and transformed from the Schwarzeneggerian-sized sex-and-sandal saga to this year’s pube-plucked testosterone turkey, 300: Rise Of An Empire.
Problemo numero uno for Rise Of An Empire? Start with the gory story. The setting of 300 has been shanghai’d to a high-seas CGI battlefield, pitting General Themistokles of the Greeks against the massive-ass Persian invasion, led by that bikini-brief god of thunder Xerxes and the bloodthirsty bronzed bitch Artemisia, who’s rebooted the Persian navy into her own musclebound militia of midshipmen for vengeance. But the script sinks the story beneath a Davy Jones’ locker of soggy seven-seas skirmishes between guys from Gold’s Gym, sucking as cinema instead of sucking at the mighty tit of the original 300’s strutting Spartan musclemen. Thus too much time for the popcorn crowd to ponder the posses of pro wrestler-wannabes and bare-chested broskis who populate this turkey.
Sure, 300 was shamelessly shallow. But Rise Of An Empire is a $200 million hair-metal music video. Pretty sure the filmmakers thought pumping up the Mr. Universe brawn and injecting 300 with a massive OD of male hormones would make Rise Of An Empire a bona fide bonerfest. Just remember: too much testosterone can cause the testicles to shrink. ‘Nuff said.