As a young girl, we learn, the Greek-born Artemisia watched helplessly as her entire village (including her parents) was slaughtered by other invading Greeks, earning her a healthy distrust of her own people. If “300” was largely a boys-only affair, “Rise of an Empire” very much belongs to the women - specifically one woman named Artemisia (Green), who sports a warrior’s stoic countenance and the blazing azure stare of a femme very fatale.
Arriving in theaters on the box office fumes of “The Legend of Hercules” and “Pompeii,” it should prove to be the ancient epic auds have been waiting for. Anchored by Eva Green’s fearsome performance as a Persian naval commander whose vengeful bloodlust makes glowering King Xerxes seem a mere poseur, this highly entertaining time-filler lacks the mythic resonances that made “300” feel like an instant classic, but works surprisingly well on its own terms. But Snyder and co-writer Kurt Johnstad handily surmount that problem in “300: Rise of an Empire,” which offers a “meanwhile, back in Athens” story to complement the Spartan narrative of the first film, along with an even higher quotient of impaled torsos, severed limbs and rippling Mediterranean musculature. Few recent tentpoles have lent themselves less naturally to a sequel than Zack Snyder’s “300,” a movie in which nearly all the major characters died, while a brief coda showed a unified Greek army about to lay waste to the remnants of Persia.
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