FACT CHECKING “300: Rise of Empire”

       I recently rewatched “300: Rise of an Empire” to see if my first impression from seeing it in a theater was reasonable.  I am a big fan of the first movie and, like most,  found the sequel to be a disappointment.  But I was not surprised because “300” was so groundbreaking and the vibe was impossible to recreate.  So Hollywood did what it is known for, it tried to give the audience the same, but bigger.  I have already reviewed it based on that trip to the multiplex, so it is not my intention to tweak that review.  Instead, let’s have some fun doing something the movie was never designed to withstand – fact checking.  Now don’t get all pissy about how you can’t expect the movie to be a history lesson.  “It’s just entertainment!”  I would be the first to admit that bringing a graphic novel to the screen makes it bullet proof when it comes to historical accuracy quibbles.  But since we’re unlikely to get a more serious take on the Persian Wars any time soon, let’s look at what the viewers of this film came away with.  With the caveat that the movie cannily structures much of the narrative as a tale being told by Queen Gorgo so you could argue that what you are watching is a Spartan bedtime story and you know how accurate bedtime stories are.

1.  Let’s start with the title.  Who dreamed that up?  You would have to stretch quite a bit to imagine that they are referring to the Delian League (sometimes called the “Athenian Empire”) which was created after the war.  Since Athens basically became an arrogant bully which forced other city-states to join and remain in its self-serving alliance, this would seem to clash with the movies theme of the war being fought for Greek freedom.  A much better title would have been “300:  The Fight for Freedom”.

2.  Battle of Marathon -  The movie wastes little time (4 minutes) to get to the Battle of Marathon.  It is a nice touch to reach back to cover the most famous battle of the Persian Wars.  It would have been nicer if there were a little truth in this segment.  Gorgo may have been told that the Persians were attacked as they disembarked on the shore, but in reality they had been camped there for several days before Themistocles convinced the Athenians to attack.  The movie does show the Athenians running toward the surprised enemy, but there is no reference to the famous tactical decision to weaken the center of the phalanx and double envelop with the wings.  In fact, as per the two films, the Greeks are shown fighting as individuals, not shields overlapping.  They do not run through a kill zone of Persian arrows.  In fact, the movie is very shaky on weapons.  Hollywood much prefers sword play to spear thrusting.  There would have been no horses available to squash a man’s head.  (Not that I would want that image removed from the film.)  Do I need to tell anyone that Themistocles did not hit Darius with an arrow?  Darius was not at the battle.  Nor was Xerxes.

3.  Artemesia -  The Greeks loved to wet their beds over strong female warriors (that’s why they invented the Amazons), so I can see why they would have enhanced Artemesia to super villainous proportions.  Although Herodotus does not do this and he never felt constrained.  The fact is that she was a Greek queen who threw in her lot with the Persians.  This was most likely an attempt to bet on a winning horse and certainly not to avenge her family.  She apparently was an advisor to Xerxes, but he seldom listened to her.  She was famously proven right.  Her role in making Xerxes into a god is fantasy.  Do I have to tell you that she did not have a steaming hot sex tryst with Themistocles?  I'm not saying they should not have included that scene.

4.  the Athenian Assembly -  It would have met outdoors, not in a building.  The movie glosses over Themistocles’ remarkably persuading his fellow citizens to rely on the fleet and evacuate the city. 

5.  the invasion -  Nice job depicting the pontoon bridge across the Hellespont.  (Props please, historians!)  However, no war elephants. Sorry.

6.  Gorgo -  If you think Artemesia was some male screenwriters fantasy, why stop there?  Although Spartan women had more influence than any other women in Greece, the portrayal of Gorgo as co-ruler with her husband and then sole ruler after his death is ahistorical.  Since she is telling the story, we can assume she is clearly delusional.

7.  Battle of Artemisium -  The movies has three separate naval bouts representing the actions at Artemisium that happened coincidental with Thermopylae.  The first movie covered the gale that cost the Persians a third of their fleet.  This movie takes huge liberties in depicting the subsequent fighting.  There is a brief glimpse of the outnumbered Greeks in a circular defensive formation, but soon abandons this accuracy for a melee version of the movie’s infantry tactics.  By the way, normally the triremes would carry ten hoplites for defense and boarding.  The movie really ups the number and gives them incredible balance as they stand on the decks.  I guess the triremes were like giant surf boards.  The trio of battles builds to the cataclysmic Greek fire soaked inferno (replete with sea monsters!).  In reality, the main battle was something of a draw, but the Greeks retreated after word of the failure of Leonidas to hold the pass.  There is no reason to believe Greek fire was used in the battle.

8.  Athens is burned – True, but the city had been abandoned by everyone except the idiots that interpreted “rely on the wooden walls” to mean the walls around the citadel.  I suppose the movie fairly accurately depicts what happened to them.

9.  Themistocles uses Ephialtes to sucker Xerxes into attacking near Salamis -  The movie insists on bringing back every actor except Gerard Butler so what to do with Ephialtes?  Have him fill the role of Themistocles’ slave who was sent to Xerxes camp with word that the Greeks were planning on fleeing, so hurry up and attack them in the narrow strait.  Pretty please.  In reality, Artemesia advised Xerxes not to fall for the trap.  In other words, exactly the opposite of what the movie depicts.  

10.  Battle of Salamis -  Xerxes did watch from the cliff (on his throne with his ass-kissers).  That’s where the accuracy ends.  Well, there was a lot of ramming and boarding, but it was not the land battle asea that the movie depicts.  Artemesia famously read the handwriting on the sail and rammed a Persian ship to make her escape.  ONce again, the exact opposite of what the movie showed.  Xerxes supposedly witnessed this action sans binoculars and remarked “my men fight like women and my women fight like men”.  (Or as the movie would have it:  “my men fight like human blood splatter emitters, and my women fight like psychotic she-bitches.”)  

CLASSIC or ANTIQUE? The 300 Spartans (1962)

 

               Now that I have seen and reviewed "300:  Rise of an Empire",  I thought it would be appropriate to review the movie that inspired Frank Miller to create the graphic novel.  “The 300 Spartans” was made with the cooperation of the Greek government which provided 5,000 soldiers.  The film was shot near the site of Thermopylae.  It was directed by Rudolph Mate.  It was his only war movie.

                The credits roll over shots of the Acropolis.  The Persian Emperor Xerxes (David Farrar) marches into Greece with a variety of units.  A captured Greek spy sasses Xerxes about freedom versus slavery.  Cold War analogy.  A Greek traitor named Demaratus is an advisor to the Emperor.  He is also accompanied by a Greek queen named Artemisia (Anna Synodinou).  She is more than just an advisor, if you get my drift. 

                The Greeks are meeting at Corinth to discuss the invasion.  Themistocles (Ralph Richardson) argues for unity.  When a foe quotes the first Delphic prediction about blood running from the roofs, Themistocles counters with the second prediction referring to the “wooden walls”.  Later Themistocles and Leonidas (Richard Egan) discuss strategy using a model of Greece.  The Spartans will hold at the mountain pass of Thermopylae and Themistocles will bring the fleet.  Unfortunately, the Spartan council refuses to allow the Spartan army to go to war during a religious festival.  Leonidas defies them by taking his bodyguard of 300 men.   

                Phyllon (Barry Coe) is the son of a traitor, but engaged to the niece of Queen Gorgos of Sparta.  He wants to prove himself, but Leonidas refuses to take him along because of his father and to set up a redemption arc.  Phyllon and Ellas (Diane Baker) tag along.  The Spartans are joined by 700 Thespians.  The Greeks arrive at the pass and begin to fortify it.

                Leonidas leads a surprise night attack on Xerxes camp.  Phyllon sneaks into the group to begin his redemption.  They catch Xerxes with his pants down as he is canoodling with Artemisia.  As a result of the ass-whipping,  Xerxes executes all the camp followers to motivate his men.  Meanwhile, Leonidas gets the unwelcome news that the Spartan army will not be coming.  They are on their own.

                In the first Persian assault, the infantry advances in lines and the Spartans await in lines.  The Persian cavalry attacks through the infantry and the Spartan front line ducks!  The horsemen are trapped between the first and second lines and a melee results.  After this initial fight, Leonidas meets with Xerxes second in command.  “Our arrows will blot out the sun.”  Leonidas:  “Then we will fight in the shade.” 

                On day two the Persians send in chariots which are dealt with by archers and javelinmen.  Next it’s the Immortals with their wicker shields and short spears.  The Spartans fight in a phalanx.  Phyllon has pretended to be dead and then sets fire to hay behind the Immortals.  War epics love fire!

                A Greek traitor named Ephialtes visits Xerxes to tell him of a goat path to get behind the Spartans.  Leonidas sends Phyllon back to Sparta to inform them of the situation.  The Thespians stay thinking they will become famous for their sacrifice.  Oops!  Note the title of the movie.

                Spoiler alert if you are so ignorant that you don’t know the outcome of the battle.  Xerxes leads the final attack in his white chariot (shouldn’t it be black?).  Leonidas advances in a wedge shape.  Leonidas is killed and the remnants carry his body to a hill and form a circle around the corpse.  Xerxes offers them their lives if they give up the body.  They prefer a barrage of arrows.  Remember Thermopylae!

                I was pleasantly surprised at how accurate “The 300 Spartans” is.  You get the basic facts about the battle from the film, but a lot of the details are fudged.  The background is the strongest section.  Xerxes did march into Greece with a huge multi-ethnic army.  Greeks like Themistocles did view the struggle as freedom versus slavery (as posited by Herodotus).  The main characters are based on actual personages and are not caricatures.  Their relationships are Hollywoodized.  There is no evidence that Artemisia and Xerxes had an affair, but it is not beyond possible.  Themistocles and Leonidas did not meet to discuss strategy, but the strategy discussed is fairly close to what actually happened.  The movie does an admirable job fitting in the most famous quotes from Herodotus.  For example, the “fight in the shade” line.

                The movie veers away from history and military sense in the battle itself.  The raid on the Persian camp was crap, of course.  But necessary to redeem Phyllon.  There is no record of Xerxes killing the camp followers.  The battle is laughable in its tactics.  The narrowness of the pass did not lend itself to lines of infantry.  Plus the Spartans would have been in a phalanx anyway.  Given the nature of the terrain there would have been no use of cavalry or chariots by the Persians.  The Immortals are accurately dressed, but the Spartans look like legionaries.  The fire surprise is pure bull shit, just as it was in “Spartacus” and “Braveheart”.  The role and motivation of Ephialtes is fine and certainly closer to the truth than in “300”.  Xerxes may have had a white chariot, but he did not participate in the battle.  The death of Leonidas is as per Herodotus.  Overall I would give the film a C for accuracy. 

                “The 300 Spartans” is surprisingly not sucky.  Egan and Richardson do a good acting job, but the rest of the cast is low rate, especially the females.  However, nobody embarrasses themselves.  The romantic subplot is lame and perfunctory.  The dialogue is average, but gets points for borrowing from the ancient sources.  It was cool hearing the famous quotes.  Although the tactics are shaky, the action is pretty good.  The hand to hand is well done and the deaths are not laughable.

                “The 300 Spartans” is a fun companion to “300”.  It is entertaining in an early 1960’s B-movie sort of way.  Watching it and then comparing it to “300” could not be a bigger contrast between an Old School war movie and whatever the Hell “300” is. 

Grade =  C

NOW SHOWING: 300: Rise of an Empire

 

                There are three different types of sequels.  Some, like “Godfather II” and “The Empire Strikes Back”, continue the story with the same quality.  Others, like “Aliens” and Terminator II”, go in a different direction than the original and make a mark of their own.  And then we have sequels like “Hangover II” and “Home Alone 2” which simply exist to remind viewers of what they loved in the original.  “300:  Rise of an Empire” is firmly in that category.  The plot template was dusted off and ramped up to please its target audience.  Mission partly accomplished.

                The film picks up at the time of the Battle of Thermopylae, but a flashback covers the Battle of Marathon from ten years previously.  Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) not only conceives the strategy and leads the 300esque slaughtering and blood-splattering, but kills the Persian Emperor Darius.  In the interim before the Persians return for their second attempt at conquest, Darius’ “warrior protégé” Artemisia (Eva Green) goes beyond making a man out of his son Xerxes.   She makes a god out of him and then sees to it that she is the power behind the throne.   She also commands the fleet. Why would a Greek queen side with the Persians?  The rape and murder of her family by the Greeks and her subsequent years as a sex slave have made her one vengeful female and she’s been trained Batman/Matrix/Kill Bill style. 

                Meanwhile, back in Greece, Themistocles is organizing the defense of Greek FREEDOM.  His trip to visit Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) finds her in mourning and in no mood to join a united Greece.  It looks like the Spartans will sit out the sequel.  They have decided “been there, done that”.  So much for those awesome infantry battles.  How about if we substitute land warfare on the sea?  This could work!  Just tweak the plot a bit and…

                While the events of “300” are transpiring on the same screen eight years ago, Themistocles is fighting the Battle of Artemisium to gain time and block Artemisia’s fleet.  It’s a three round heavyweight bout that has cut-men babbling insanely in their corners.  There is some ramming, but mostly boarding.  You’ve got to be impressed with ancient footwear as I did not see a single combatant slip on the gallons of blood spilled on the decks.  For that matter, I don’t recall anyone tripping on the numerous severed limbs.

                Between rounds, as the audience is supposed to be catching its breath, comes the soon to become iconic scene in teenage boydom.  Themistocles visits Artemisia and they “negotiate”.  Or as a three year old who wanders into his parent’s bedroom would assume, they were wrestling.  Extreme wrestling.  Eva Green seals her place in war movie history with this scene.

                Since round three has to top the other two that means it’s time for some anachronistic explosions.  What’s the one thing “300” lacked?  Fire!  Do you remember the ninja zombies and war mastodons from the original?  Here we get human-bomb frogmen and corpse-eating sea monsters. 

                Spoiler alert to the historically illiterate:  Xerxes sacks Athens.  Themistocles paltry fleet, sans the suddenly wimpy Spartans, are waiting at Salamis for the rematch.  Artemisia urges the uncharacteristically cautious Xerxes to rush in and finish the Greeks.  What could go wrong in a battle where it looks like the Persians outnumber the Greeks by 500 ships against 5?

                In typical sequel fashion, “300:  Rise of an Empire” is not up to the original.  This is not surprising considering the uniqueness of the original.  The sequel to “Sin City” will have the same problem.  This does not mean they shouldn’t be made.  Fans demand a rematch just like after a great boxing match.  Noone complained when Ali and Frazier punched each other again in the “Thrilla in Manilla”.  With that caveat, this sequel is not unusual in lacking the “charm” of the original.  It just does not have the flair.  This can partly be attributed to the battles not being as interesting as Thermopylae.  Plus the sequel can repeat much of the structure of the original, but even a rote sequel is not going to be able to repeat the Spartan culture that laid the groundwork for the first film.

                The sequel reflects others of its ilk by ramping up the violence.  There is more blood, more dismemberments, more of everything that made the original so visceral.  If you hated “300” you will undoubtedly hate this movie.  I guarantee you no critic who did not like the original will like this one instead.  Well, possibly some feminists might be swayed by Eva Green’s performance.  She is the one original thing about the movie and the Artemisia character prevents the movie from being “Hangover II”.  (In this respect she reminds of adding Joe Pesci to Lethal Weapon 2.)  It will be hard to forget two of her scenes.  One is when she kisses the decapitated head of a captive.  And the other isn’t.  Go see the movie.  The rest of the actors are satisfactory, but not as appealing as the originals.  Stapleton is sturdy, but I doubt he will get the bounce that Gerard Butler got.  Such a bounce that he is the only significant no show in the sequel.

                The biggest problem is (drum roll please) the raping of history.  I had complimented “300” for being admirably accurate for a movie based on a graphic novel, especially when it did not have to be accurate at all.  The sequel does not even attempt to adhere to the facts.  Where you got the basic gist of the Battle of Thermopylae, here we have little that is recognizable.  This is especially true of the portrayal of Artemisia.  I will do a later post on the specific mistakes, but in many ways the movie is exactly the opposite of reality. Speaking of reality, it would be dickish to insist on it in a movie such as this.  All you can ask is that you not be brought to laughter.  There were two moments in the film where I could not keep from laughing.  One involved Themistocles riding a horse across the flaming decks.  Sometimes what is meant to be awesome ends up being awful.

                In short, if you loved “300” you will like “300: Rise of an Empire”.  It is more of the same, including bare chests.  It should please all the sexual orientations.

 

Grade =  C