300 Rise of an Empire Review

I love pretty movies.  To me, one of the most important aspects about a movie is, it should be visually artistic.  If a movie doesn't look good, I might as well read a book... and who has time for that??  (But seriously kids, read a book!  You won't regret it!).  Unfortunately, these days, most movies (and television shows) are more eager to look gritty and dark with all their bland muted colors and shaky cameras.  They try to justify it saying things look more 'realistic'.  Well, my life is filled with the big box of 64 crayons, not just the dark 8 pack many directors use today *COUGH*christophernolan*COUGH* 

So you can imagine my excitement seeing the 2006 movie 300, staring Gerard Butler and directed by Zack Snyder.  I wrote an awesome review (that I will re-post one day) saying how visually amazing it was for me, with all the pretty colors and airbrush looking art style.  Filled with great characters, and an interesting story, it is still one of my top ten favorite movies of all time for many reasons.

And now in 2014, we finally get a sequel, with a mostly different cast and different director.  So how does 300: Rise of an Empire compare to the original?

300 was a graphic novel by Frank Miller, released in 1998, creatively based on real events that took place a long time ago in a country far, far away (well, far away from where I live anyway).  Shortly after the success of the first movie, Frank began writing a sequel entitled Xerxes.  Seven years later, he still hasn't completed it.  However, they released the movie based on that unfinished story anyway.  Take a moment and let your brain wrap around that.

For the sequel, we spend our time with the Greeks (although for the record, I don't think there were 300 of them), as their events run parallel to everything that was happening in the first movie (think Back to the Future 2, although not as covert... or silly).  Their leader, Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) has a particularly freaky relationship with Xerxes second-in-command, Artemisia (Eva Green).  We also get a few moments here and there with great characters from the first movie, Xerxes (still ultra cool Rodrigo Santoro), Queen Gorgo (yes Lena Headey just as awesome as she always is, from Game of Thrones), and even Ephialtes (hunching better than ever by Andrew Tiernan)... but we don't see nearly enough of any of them.

Most of this movie took place at sea, and maybe that's why it felt... watered down (sorry, I couldn't resist).  None of the characters or visuals were quite as interesting as they were in the original movie.  And every time the Greeks cheered, it really made me miss the Spartan "AH-HOO!  AH-HOO!".  We do get moments of pretty airbrushing visuals, but overall, nothing stood out quite as much as the original.  Even Queen Gorgo, who looked beautiful and regal from the first movie, looks a bit harsh here.  It was like director Noam Murro saw the original, and jumped up and down and said, "I can do that too!".  No... no Noam, you really can't.  Now go to your room.

In all fairness, I shouldn't be too harsh to this movie.  It's not bad... it's just drawn that way.  If the original 300 was never made, Rise of an Empire would be a decent movie on it's own.  But if you have to watch a movie with lots of shirtless men with rock hard abs, grunting and sweating, the original Spartan story is still much more arousing... err, I mean exciting to watch.

Speaking of shirtless, maybe it would have helped a bit more if they showed an Oracle or two... or three.

Deeesher

Sucker Punch Review

Last year, I saw previews for the movie Sucker Punch, and instantly felt this was the greatest movie I will ever see! It had everything; explosions, giant samurai robots, fire-breathing dragons, sword fights, women in prison and more...!

So here we are after a year of eager anticipation, and I see many negative reviews. Yikes. What went wrong?!?

Let me first say I disagree with a lot of the negative reviews. I enjoyed it quite a bit, (although it's not as perfect as I'd hoped), but this is much more of a cult classic than easily accepted general public eye-candy.

I think for the average moviegoer, the story was a bit too cerebral. Sure the setup is easy enough: Baby Doll (Emily Browning), is sent to a mental institute by her psycho stepfather a la a very cool music video style intro. And that's about where common sense ends... Well, if you call naming your main character Baby Doll 'common sense'. From there, her mind sends her to work in a 1940's brothel with other girls who just want to escape. During their escape attempts, Baby Doll dances, which transports us into an almost anime style steam-punk world where all the super ass-kicking happens. Um... yea.

Zack Snyder wrote it, as well as directing and while the writing isn't bad (although maybe a bit pretentious at times), maybe he should stick to making comic book movies like 300 (where my bromance with Zack began) and Watchmen. I also wonder if focusing so much on the writing, affected his directing. Zack loves his slow motion and generally in past movies, the action was very fun and exciting to see. This time however, some action scenes felt like he was falling into the Michael Bay trap of quick close edits. Oh don't worry, nobody is that bad!

The characters are all interesting to watch, and women should appreciate it because the girls aren't dressed gratuitously. I still think they could have made the outfits a bit more sexy... but I only say that cause I like a bit of sugar in my eye-candy. Oh relax people, they made a point to show the girls are over 18!

These legally aged adults consist of Baby Doll in her blonde pigtails and school girl outfit swinging around samurai swords, (if you're into that sort of thing). We also have Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), and my personal favorite's Amber (Jamie Chung), and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens... who I hear has naked pictures of herself on the internet somewhere, again if you're into that sort of thing).

In a world where all men are awesomely evil, we do get one Wise Man played by Scott Glenn. While he did a fine job, all I could think was how perfect David Carradine would have been for this. Oh David, why did you have to pleasure yourself to death?!?

Sucker Punch is a unique movie with a look and style all it's own, feeling like a very fun mash-up of video games, and anime set to a great soundtrack. Much respect to Zack Snyder for filling in that steam-punk gap that has been missing from our movies for so long now making me very eager to see what he will do with Superman when it's finished sometime in 2012.

One last thought...
While we never got to see Baby Doll dance, I think maybe this is okay. I would be very disappointed to discover that the dance that mesmerized the bad guys so deeply was only the Macarena.

Terrified of the world I would be transported into if I tried to dance,
Deeesher