Sullivan Stapleton as Themistocles in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE (2014)
Does anyone remember or even like this movie? It was a follow up to 300 (2006), which was a big hit but waiting another 8 years after the first one seems a pretty long time for a second film. Personally, I've never been a fan of either 300 or this movie. It's just men screaming endlessly. Though I'm often described as focused on beefcake (the PEPLUM genre IS beefcake...😂), the beefcake in this movie and 300, and there's plenty of it (below), doesn't even hold my interest. It's an odd film series. It looks more like something from another planet than a grounded story set in Antiquity. I do like the setting on the ocean and sea battles and such in this one. But it doesn't look real. The way the movie is filmed, such as in the screenshot, seems cold and yet all the men barely have clothes on. There's something jarring about it. It doesn't look like a hot setting! Believe me, I've tried and tried getting into these movies and I can't! And the performance by Eva Green is a major liability. I read somewhere that they described it as HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING (1991). Ouch!
There's a whole bunch of movies from that period that are all but forgotten today, like IMMORTALS (2011), CONAN THE BARBARIAN (2011), the CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010) remake and its sequel, WRATH OF THE TITANS (2012). THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (2014), HERCULES (2014) starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, GODS OF EGYPT (2016), etc. With the upcoming ODYSSEY movie, which looks boring as hell, will there be another bunch of forgettable neo-PEPLUM movies? 😂
3 comments:
The new crop of Peplum films is mostly uninspiring. One of the missing elements is the sense of wonder I got from the real sets and huge casts of the older films. Now it's all done with CGI. Everybody went on and on about Gladiator, which was fine, but I would rather see Fall of the Roman Empire any day (which is essentially the same story).
Funny you should mention those forgotten Peplums from 12-15 years ago. I was just thinking about them the other day. Also from that era, MEET THE SPARTANS, a really lowbrow (=dumb) parody of 300 but fitfully funny if you watch it with a couple of beers. I doubt ODYSSEY will inspire a new sword-and-toga wave, but who knows.
Fred, yes, that one too. There's also ALEXANDER.
Yes, CGI makes the cast of thousands pointless. It was the spectacle but CGI is not the same.
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