Ajay and I watched this on DVD last week. It was so bad we took turns sleeping and watching, like sentries on a safari, not liking the look of the night but afraid to look away. She tried to discourage me from reviewing it, saying it would be a waste of time. I agreed. But three days later, I am still so resentful of having that hour stolen from me that I have to vent a little.

Quite simply, 300: Rise of an Empire is the worst A-list movie that I have seen. You Ancient Combat readers are surely expecting me to detail all of the historical and combative inaccuracies. That would take a book. There was nothing vaguely authentic about the armored-ninja-video-game-hobgoblin combat sequences. There was not a single depiction of a historical action that was even vaguely accurate. [The ancient ships sinking to the bottom like WWII destroyers cut in half by 18-inch shells was probably the most egregious—or the warhorse galloping from ship to ship…the holes are endless.]

300: Rise of an Empire was a sadistic video-game inspired fantasy that was written around the two following guidelines; we must show video-game imagery with excessive gore and sadism to attract the young male audience; and we must base the entire narrative around female potency delivered in bare-chested dialogue as the speaker and supporting cast walk heroically into the camera lens. This movie is much more an exercise in pure fantasy than Game of Thrones, which views like a documentary by comparison.

The story revolves around two figures: an evil necrophiliac psycho-slut who can only be killed in combat by a man she has had sex with while he was still alive; and a righteous queen of armored eye-candy who gives speeches justifying her homicidal rage. The entire narrative is obviously from the beginning just a clunky enabling mechanism for the furious slut’s dramatic death—who is only evil because she was raped by men in childhood and is granted eleventh hour forgiveness—and the summer dress charge of the lone queen into the ranks of the enemy while her armored eye-candy attempts to catch up.

To me this movie is the death of the sword and sandal genre that was reborn with Gladiator. The special effects were not nearly as good and looked very video-gamey. The combat is an endless series of sadistic executions of robotic dupes.

The story says this:

1. all powerful men are the puppets and mouthpieces of conniving women

2. women are only conniving because men have brutalized them

3. male warriors are just decorative devices for ultra-potent rage goddesses

4. and most importantly, the only thing that stands between women and world supremacy is a hard penis. If women were all dykes they would be unstoppable.

If the producers would have hired whoever wrote the Johnny Trejo vehicle Machete Kills 300: Rise of an Empire would have been viewable, perhaps a 2-star effort.

Don’t waste your time. This movie sucked.