The unnecessary sequel to the movie full of scantly clad muscular men killing each other in slow motion, and despite all this it's the women that carry this movie.
Director Noam Murro does his best Zack Snyder impression here giving us an hour and forty minutes of unimaginative and frankly painful cinematography, the narrative runs alongside the Spartans battle against the Persians in the first film and see's Athenian hero Thermistokles (charisma vacuum Sullivan Stapleton channeling the ghost of Leonidas) fight, flex and give cliched motivational speeches to his rag tag and unmemorable troops as they battle the Persians at sea.
Eva Green however is one of the films saving graces, she plays Artemisia, a Greek born naval commander working for the Persian Empire who sets the bar for 'not to be messed with'. A powerful femme fatale who's merciless and unhinged psyche is portrayed with such subtlety you'd be best treading on egg shells around her. Though I'm not sure if I'm putting her on a pedestal purely because she acts circles around the majority of her co-stars.
There are plenty of nods to the original film, familiar characters return such as Xerxes, the giant king from the first movie who with little explanation we see how he transforms from a regular man into the 'God King'. Some magical desert water? Really? Lena Headey also returns as Leonidas' wife Queen Gorgo, again showing that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned as she not only cuts her way through hordes of Persians but delivers a speech with far more weight to it than all of Sullivan's combined. Good God I've missed Game Of Thrones.
In defense of the film the visuals as always look great, from the lavish Persian temples and the flaming rubble of Athens you're always reminded that this is very much a Snyder film, gorgeous visuals and brutal murder seems to go hand in hand with everything he touches. Sadly he also co wrote the screenplay and you find yourself shifting in your seat until another battle arrives to spark some entertainment into a franchise that is very much mirroring the battle of Thermopylae with the critics. They even shoehorned in a "this is Sparta" line, if it was anyone but Lena Headey that said it I would have cringed uncontrollably.
Regardless this movie will do well at the box office and there will undoubtedly be a sequel dealing with the end of Xerxes, a villain literally nobody cares about. Wait for the DVD.
I never thought I'd miss Gerard Butler so much.
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