300: Rise of an Empire

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Movie
German title 300: Rise of an Empire
Original title 300: Rise of an Empire
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2014
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Noam Murro
script Zack Snyder ,
Kurt Johnstad
production Zack Snyder,
Thomas Tull ,
Deborah Snyder ,
Gianni Nunnari ,
Bernie Goldmann ,
Mark Canton
music Junkie XL
camera Simon Duggan
cut David Brenner ,
Wyatt Smith
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
300

300: Rise of an Empire is the sequel to the film 300 . The film was originally scheduled to open in the United States in late fall 2013, but it was postponed to March 7, 2014, when it actually opened. In Germany and German-speaking Switzerland, the film opened in cinemas one day earlier, and in Austria the next day. Like its predecessor, the film is based on the comic 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley .

action

The Spartan Queen Gorgon is on a ship of the Spartan fleet and tells her soldiers about the battle of Marathon (490 BC) that took place ten years earlier , in which the Persian King Darius was seriously injured by an arrow by the Athenian warlord Themistocles . when he and his men attacked the Persians in a surprise attack while they were landing in the bay of Marathon. When he was dying, Darius implored his son Xerxes I to end the war because, as he said, "only the gods can defeat these Greeks". Artemisia , a close confidante and advisor to the Persian ruler of Greek descent, interpreted the last words to mean that Xerxes should accomplish what only a god could do, namely to destroy Greece.

Xerxes left the royal court, wrapped in a mystical cloth, bathed in a supernatural liquid and returned as a hairless god-king over two meters tall. Artemisia then killed all advisors, teachers, warlords and all other confidants of the god-king Xerxes and nourished in Xerxes the desire to subdue Athens.

Gathered in Athens, the emissaries of the Greek Poleis, faced with the threat of annihilation, called for negotiations with Xerxes, but Themistocles believed that only the union of the Poleis could stop the Persians and urged the representatives to send their fleet.

Xerxes approached Greece with his army by land, Artemisia meanwhile with a huge fleet. The Athenian Scyllias worked as a spy on board the ship of Artemisia. When he was exposed he was able to escape and report to Themistocles.

Artemisia once saw how Greeks violated and killed her family. She herself became a slave and later discovered in the port by a Persian ambassador, the very one who was later to visit Leonidas in Sparta. She learned the martial art, distinguished herself through high art of war and brought the Persian King Darius many victories. She wanted to take revenge on the Greeks.

Themistocles first traveled to Sparta to ask Leonidas to provide Sparta's fleet. There he learned from Queen Gorgon that Leonidas was already questioning the ephors with his war plans , but that the Carneia festival was imminent. Gorgo also made it clear to him that a united Greece had always been his dream, but never that of the Spartians.

Themistocles collected the fleet of the Greek Poleis, the majority of which came from Athens, while Leonidas and 300 men fought the Persians at Thermopylae . Themistocles led his ships against the Persians in the Battle of Artemision (480 BC). The next day the Greeks lured the Persian ships into an ambush. Despite being numerically inferior, the Greeks were able to prove themselves impressively. Impressed by Themistocles' abilities, Artemisia invited him over. On their ship she seduced him and tried to persuade him to betray, but he refused. The next battle, which was fought with bad luck and fire, ends with the retreat of the Greeks who barely survived.

At the battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) Leonidas had meanwhile fallen. Xerxes had the news of Ephialtes of Trachis , who had made victory possible through his betrayal, carried to Athens. When Themistocles got the news of the fall of Thermopylae, he spread the word throughout Greece and set out for Sparta to ask Queen Gorgo for the Spartan fleet again. In Athens he met Ephialtes, whom he instructed to explain to his master that the Greek fate would be decided at Salamis .

The Persians, whose way was free after the fall of Thermopylae, plundered and sacked Athens (480/479 BC). Surprised by Ephialtes' news that Themistocles had survived, Artemisia decided against the advice of Xerxes to attack the Greek fleet. In view of the lack of support from Sparta, Themistocles left his men up to fight. With a handful of ships he faced the Persian superiority at the Battle of Salamis . His tactic was to take out Artemisia. He managed to ask them.

Here the plot closes: Leonidas' self-sacrificing struggle to the point of ruin impressed not only the Spartians but also the rest of the Greek poleis. One sees Gorgon, who told the story in a flashback, how she intervenes in battle with the fleets of Sparta and other Greek poles. In view of the hopeless situation for Artemisia, Themistocles offers her the opportunity to flee, which she refuses; then he kills her. The Persians have no chance in battle against the warriors of the Greek poleis.

background

The film describes the historical naval battle of Artemision , which took place around the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae , which was already discussed in the first film, as well as the Battle of Salamis . However, he deviates massively from historical reality.

The associated comic Xerxes was originally published in 2018, but depicts the entire period from the Persian Wars to the fall of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great .

Reviews

The Rotten Tomatoes website gave the film a 44% positive rating based on 190 reviews. This corresponds to an average value of 4.97 out of 10. At Metacritic he received a Metascore of 48%, based on 34 reviews.

Cinema judged that director Noam Murro demonstrated a "staging knack for monumental visual impressions that reach their climax in slow-motion slaughter pimped up with plastic fountains of blood". The acting performance of Eva Green was also highlighted, whoembodied her role with "breathtakingly much taste".

Thomas Groh von Perlentaucher writes: “If '300' was still an attempt to tell a story of the courage of a soldier, '300: Rise of an Empire' only tells in passing. He subordinates everything to his aesthetic program: everything is excess, everything is game material - space, time, body, thing and force, movement. What seemed silly over-grafted in erotic desire in '300' is concretized: an ecstatic excess shoots into every picture, this film is downright voracious as it subordinates everything to a very dark form of desire. 'The ecstasy of steel and flesh' is what a dialogue calls it concretely. "

Dietmar Dath from the FAZ says: “The latest sanctions against Persia. '300 - Rise of an Empire' stages the defense of the democratic Classical Greece against the Persians as a war on terror. The purpose ennobles every crime. "

“Just entertainment? - If we read the unfamiliar word ' hoplites ' once as ' leather necks ', 'marines' or, in German Armed Forces , 'crisis reaction forces', then a consistency familiar from the news is justified and illustrated with horror morality, with which drones decimate Islamic wedding parties or join special units Execute sixteen-year-old sons of terror suspects after nightly attacks. It is the logic of the permanent extension of killing lists up to the third, seventh, twelfth member, about which Jeremy Scahill shot his documentary ' Dirty Wars '. "

Awards

The advertisement for the film was nominated several times for the Golden Trailer Awards 2014. The first trailer Vengeance was nominated as Best Fantasy Adventure , the first cinema trailer for Best Music , and the TV commercial War Revised as Best Fantasy / Adventure TV Spot . The film was also nominated for the best posters and the most kitschy posters.

The conversion of the existing 2D image material into 3D was nominated at the International 3D & Advanced Imaging Society's Creative Arts Awards 2015 for the Creative Arts Award in the category Best 2D to 3D Conversion (Outstanding Use of 2D to 3D Conversion) .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for 300: Rise of an Empire . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2014 (PDF; test number: 143 584 K).
  2. Thomas Zimmer: 300: Rise of an Empire - First trailer full of warlike action. In: Serienjunkies.de . June 13, 2013, accessed June 10, 2019 .
  3. WORLDWIDE RELEASE DATES . In: 300themovie.com
  4. 300: Rise Of An Empire . In moviepilot.de
  5. 300: Rise of an Empire . In: RottenTomatoes . Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  6. 300: Rise of an Empire . In: Metacritic . Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  7. Cinema , issue # 3/2014 , p. 31
  8. Thomas Groth: Review of Perlentaucher from March 6, 2014, accessed on March 6, 2014.
  9. Dietmar Dath: The latest sanctions against Persia . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 6, 2014, accessed on September 28, 2014.
  10. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 5, 2014