300: A Film Made Without Consequence or Responsibility

300: Rise of an Empire

It doesn't take long to remind yourself why you both love and hate 300. You both love and hate the ridiculousness of the battles. How a man can fight five against one easily. How a woman can cut a mans throat, then the back of his head and take it clean off with just a knife. It would seem ridiculous for a strong woman or man to be able to throw a head (13 pounds)  sideways over 20 feet without even looking in that general direction, but these types of acts are just part of the illusion of strength made by this film. I will say that over the course of history that ancient people were stronger (minus nutrition details) due to the fact that many of them worked in trades demanding strength of body. These are also trades that we would not suffer as a people today.

I say this film is void of consequence and responsibility because it falls victim to the obvious pitfalls of a sequel. For instance...
The captain and his son is the same plot line from the first to second with different characters (that are underdeveloped).
The movie uses the legendary actions of the first to make a somewhat new plot line for the second (this is not always bad but for the most part it takes away from the present)
The main character is always far more intelligent than the audience or other characters in the film believe him to be. It's like opposite dramatic irony where the audience is left in the dark about the hero in order to make it more dramatic when he does something unpredictable. (Aka he does not appear to have any knowledge of naval warfare from the war fought 10 years previous, but is a great tactician later on.)
Character reuse is rampant and mundane. They try to use the same characters in the second that were good characters in the first except they have little development in the second.
They also have new characters to basically take the place of the old characters and never develop them except for a few lines of dialogue here and there. They want you to be emotionally invested in the character from the last movie except not he has a new face, less meaning, and you don't care if he lives or dies.
They are also unable to produce a new hero that is different from that of the first. He has all the screen time in the world, but hardly differed from Leonitus in any way. It makes for a boring version of the character Gerrard Butler made awesome.

The film does have some great one liners, but they are forced. I will say that the women characters do have great diction and delivery. I am one of those people who is saddened by the lack of strong female roles and in film and yes I do find it odd that you would find strong woman roles in a frat fest like this. Often I think these strong male oriented piss contests for movies are one of the only venues a woman can be strong in film today. I will not defend them by saying that even a small minority provide this venue. This is a recent trend in film. I can't say I feel the empowerment of women in them but I will write that I am hoping these types of women characters are used more often in film (not television) I am not saying these films are a template, but merely a stage to stand on.

The similarities between the two 300 films are enough to make them sequels but not enough to make this film independently great on its own.

It seems the director had freedom without consequence or responsibility for making a poorly written film.