300: Rise of an Empire (2014) on Netflix
Themistocles of Athens leads a Greek fleet against the invading Persians, whose navy is commanded by Artemisia. On land, the god king Xerxes marches toward the Greek city-states.
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- Rotten Tomatoes45%
Trailer
Plot summary
At the Battle of Marathon, the Athenian general Themistocles strikes down King Darius of Persia. Darius's son Xerxes, pushed by the naval commander Artemisia, walks into the desert and comes out a god king, then declares war on Greece. A decade on, Xerxes takes his army overland toward Thermopylae while Artemisia commands the Persian fleet at sea. Athens trusts to its ships, and Themistocles wins the council's backing for a navy. He goes to Sparta seeking aid from King Leonidas, who has already marched out with three hundred men, and Queen Gorgo will not commit Sparta to Athens's cause. Themistocles sails for the Aegean with a small Greek force to meet Artemisia's much larger fleet.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about 300: Rise of an Empire (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Cambridge classicist Paul Cartledge noted that the film's Artemisia is an invention: the real Artemisia was a queen, not an abused orphaned slave, argued against sailing into the straits and survived the Persian Wars.
- Junkie XL composed the score, the first film in an ongoing partnership with Zack Snyder, and researched ancient Persian and Greek instrumentation to match the period and culture, blending those sounds with electronic instruments.
