300: Rise of an Empire

The casting call for male roles in 300: Rise of an Empire must have included only the most basic of requirements, such as washboard abs, an unkempt beard, an ability to handle a sword, and a willingness to grunt on cue.

In fact, there’s hardly any reason to even involve human actors at all in this ultraviolent sequel to the 2006 adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel, which relies more on computer gimmickry than genuine emotion. Like its predecessor, this installment is more about brawn than brains.

Yet this effort is lacking the freshness and visual innovation that made the first film so exhilarating, and feels more like a piggybacking cash grab as a result, shot in both IMAX and 3D to maximize profits.

The story essentially picks up where the first film left off, with the ancient Persian Army in the moving its battle for domination from Sparta to Athens, where Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) sends his troops into a conflict against an undemaned but resilient group of Greeks led by Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), an admiral trying to resist the alluring manipulations of a rival queen (Eva Green). Meanwhile, the goal of the Greeks is to band its armies together against the Persian invasion, allowing them to fight battles both on land and at sea.

Rise of an Empire is missing both star Gerard Butler and director Zack Snyder from the original film, although Snyder co-wrote the screenplay (based on a separate Miller novel called Xerxes). Snyder’s replacement behind the camera is Noam Murro (Smart People), who stages some intense and vivid battle sequences with an impressive array of visual effects to emphasize spectacle over story.

As with the first 300, the sequel sees many of its supporting characters get lost amid the constant barrage of arrows, swords, severed heads and blood — lots and lots of blood — all of which are thrown at the 3D lens with repetitive regularity. The only portrayals that register strongly are those of Stapleton, who gets most of the obligatory rallying-cry speeches, and the two women on opposite sides of the conflict.

But the strategy here is pretty transparent. It’s a big-budget helping of fanboy eye candy in which the action scenes are meant to be so dazzling that you ignore that it doesn’t make much sense — or that you’ve basically seen it before.

Rated R, 102 minutes.