300: Rise of an Empire review

First off: spoilers. Not that there is much to the story that you wouldn't already know...but still. I might as well mention it. As you can tell, I don't write very much on this blog. I take a very laid back approach, and write when I want to. This is one of those times.

The original 300 movie was, in my humble opinion, excellent. It combined storytelling with combat, even if the numbers were skewed a bit (more in the army than just 300 Spartans, Xerxes army was probably around 300k and not over a million...that kind of thing), it got the idea of the story right. That is: very few Spartans and Greeks stood against an overwhelming majority and allowed for Greece to rally. Eventually turning the tide against the Persians. All well and good, history has been supported by worse data. Enter 300: Rise of an Empire.

If you want to read the Wikipedia articles on these battles, click here. If you don't want to read the entire thing, just start with the Second Persian invasion of Greece. So here we go.

1. Actual history: Marathon. No, Darius did not die. In fact, after the battle Darius went back home to raise another army to do what he just failed to do. However, the Egyptians revolted and this caused an indefinite suspension of the invasion. Darius later dies and Xerxes comes to power. During this time, Artemisia of Caria was princess (and later queen) of Halicarnassus (not even close to Athens or Sparta as invasions go) after her husband dies, also had a grandson. She was held in high regard by Xerxes, telling him not to go against the Greeks on the ocean (which he ignored, to his peril). She also convinced him to abandon the campaign to his generals after the loss of Salamis. She wound up in Ephesus to take care of Xerxes illegitimate sons and her lands were well off because of it. End of story.
   
   In the movie: Themistocles kills Darius at Marathon and "angers" Xerxes...but Xerxes is a wimp and so has to be motivated to go crazy by the supreme naval commander crazy girl named Artemisia who apparently had a grudge match with ALL of Greece because of her family being killed by some no name hoplites. Not the badass princess of actual history, but a sob story. Didn't happen, and not even a liberal analysis could say that this was close to accuracy.
2. Actual history: A random battle. I have no idea. I'm assuming this is part of the battles of Artemisium. Western style circle of ships, Greeks and Persians were essentially equal in losses, however the Greeks were much smaller in number and so losses hurt more. There were a multi-national force of over 270 in the actual battle.
   
   In the movie: depicts 50 ships against 1000. I think the studio is pushing this whole "lopsided odds fighting for the future of humanity and freedom and democracy against tyranny" thing too far. We are all aware that Greece had slaves as well, right?
3. Complimentary sex scene: God help me, don't get me started. No, Artemisia did not have faux-passionate pounding sex with Themistocles. Didn't happen. In fact, Artemisia wasn't even the commander of the Persian navy. She was a leader of 5 ships. That's it. What a horrible, disgusting, awkward transitions scene. I mean, 300 had a sex scene, but Spartan abs-master (you know him as King Leonidas) was fairly certain this was the last time he was going to see his awesome wife, and so had last time sex. Makes sense. But grudge match girl, commander of the Persian navy, invites naval commander of Athens to bone, and doesn't kill him? She just spent the first half of the movie randomly killing...well...everyone. She didn't take this opportunity to off the Athenian general (whom the entire Athenian naval strategy was hinged) and break the moral of the Greeks? Mmk.
4. Actual history: Athens burns. You see, Atheniens weren't idiots. They knew that the retreat from Artemisium and the loss of Thermopylae meant that Attica (Athens was located here)was undefended. They evacuated to Salamis to avoid major loss. There was a small contingent who held out in the Acropolis, but they were defeated. Athens was razed.
   
   In the movie: Athens just...burns. Random people getting murdered, Xerxes dropping a head ceremoniously...blah. Because no one knows that a 300 thousand man army led by a king with a piss match against Greeks was coming for Athens after Thermopylae falls. Thanks Obama.
5. Actual history: Battle of Salamis. You know what? At this point I'm not going to even explain it. Suffice to say that Themistocles whooped ass with around 378 multinational ships against over 1200 Persian ships. Allies that they knew were there from the start of the battle. Because real men don't just run into battle with nothing to fight with, no matter how awesome the cause, thinking that even though no one is there to fight, there's a slight chance that they'll come at the last second to make this whole thing worth while. Oh, and Artemisia lives.
   
   In the movie: No. I won't even spoil it for you. Actually I will. THEY HAD 4 SHIPS. OH, and a horse. Yes. A horse riding across the ocean. Sparta saves the day. Who saw that coming?

So there you have it. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 41%, which I say is a tad high...but I'm also a harsh critic in this regard. I personally feel it's a waste of Redbox funds, but that's just me as well.