Review: 300 Rise of an Empire [2014] English

No. This was neither a sequel nor a prequel to 300 but what I could term as a Sidequel ie the events happen around the same time of Leonidas and his men's heroics against Xerxes, the one with an embellished attire. What 300 missed to present, was covered in The Rise, viz., how the mighty and fearful Xerxes came into being and what made him and his Commander"ess" seek seething revenge against the Greeks.  This part has been exquisitely interwoven into the main stream story of The Rise.  Action, blood and gore right from the word go with some terrific hard beat pulsating background score and stunning visuals with a rare blend of light effects sums up The Rise.  Unforgettable was the 3D effect when Xerxes walks out to address his people, unforgettable are most of the scenes that were shot on the seas.  Dialogues were good too..the one that I remember "Better we show them, we chose to die on our feet, rather than live on our knees".  I found The Rise better than the 300 for its music, for its action and for its script.  Save some aberrations of bringing in colloquial English into the film, for example, a couple of words that end with "k" and a by now ubiquitous sentimental "son" wanting to fight with "dad" with only one of them surviving, the movie is worth a dekho.  If blood, gore, cut heads and a stereophonic acoustic of "kresh " that you get to hear when Steel cuts through flesh or "liquid droops" read "blood droops" is not your cuppa....you could give this a miss for sure...But if you are upto it, then you could well make your way into the theaters.  Ofcourse, the best place in town Screen 4 @Prazads, Hyderabad for its Dolby Atmos effects.  I would classify this second to probably "Gladiator" for its screenplay and edge of the seat theatrics and would safely give it a 4 on 5.  

Review - Pompeii (English) 2014

A quick Trailer watch or a look at a few posters would surely set you thinking of the "Mother of All" action movies viz., Gladiator and if Pompeii, a new historical-kitsch disaster movie, was Gladiator 2 with some flower pottish Mt Vesuvius volcano thrown in as a masala element.  So it was Gladiator (2D) vs Pompeii (3D).  Even with several scenes lifted straight from the Original, Pompeii was a big big let down.  Poorly shot, with some very predictable twists (?) or the lack of them, cheesy dialogues, crass acting, terrible screenplay, the hero and the herione never die or will to the last minute despite the fiery explosion of Mt. Vesuvius spewing cauldrons of fire all around but save on them and of course the villain (there has to be a one on one last scene fight, No) sums up Pompeii.  Visual effects $^%&**$$ (my favourite expletives)  MY FOOT, were much much to be desired.  The problem I guess was comparing Pompeii with the benchmark that Russel Crowe, the amazing star cast and the story laid out by Gladiator. As is the universal law, every sequel of a movie is much less impressive than the previous one, Pompeii lives up to the expectation of a Gladiator IV or even V. You would do well by giving this a miss for sure....