300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

An American action war film directed by Noam Murro, starring Lena Headey, David Wenham and Rodrigo Santoro.
The events surrounding the plot of the 2006 film are told. The Athenian naval forces fight the Persians.
This should have been called 300 II: The Quest for More Money. It had lots of what made the original great, but way too much of it. The plot focused on politics and military campaigns, rather than the personal story of King Leonidas. What the plot lacked was focus. There were tons of characters and I thought the acting was lackluster. There must have been a decision not to develop a few characters, but throw armies around instead. The video was cheesy. It all looked like the first film, but way overdone. There was way too much slow motion and so much CG that it looked more like the God of War and Prince of Persia games for PS2 than a movie. The audio was not too bad. I could hear almost everything, but was glad that the copy I got came with subtitles. Then the ending credits played and my respect for the audio job went down the toilet. Black Sabbath's War Pigs song is not appropriate in this context. If you liked the 2006 film, don't watch this. If you liked Peter Jackson's Hobbit films, this was made just for you. I rate it bad because it would have been alright if it had not been trying to ride the coattails of 300 so hard.