If you can get past 300: Rise of an Empire being another Zack Snyder movie, and another Zack Snyder 300 movie, you might just go to this one because it looks like it could be a solid popcorn movie. But a better reason would be to watch Eva Green and Lena Headey face off in a fantasy action flick.
Rise of an Empire is loosely based on Greek battles before, during, and after the battle of Thermopylae, the focus of Frank Miller’s graphic novel on which the original 300 film was based. History buffs will find it difficult to get past most of the costuming and strange masked legions of Xerxes and his allies.
This movie trailer suggests Lena Headey’s Queen of Sparta is part of a plot to avenge the death of her husband from the original film, King Leonidas (Gerard Butler). Eva Green plays Artemesia, based on an actual commander of the Persian navy, and the only female commander according to the Greek historian Herodotus in books 7 and 8 of his Histories.
