"From the producers of 300" screamed the billboards and posters on the sides of buses, a proclamation that should surely freeze the blood in your veins, not because of the association with 300, a fine example of swords and sandals splatter that thoroughly entertained, but because any film whose most laudable claim is it is made by people who have, you know, made something else, must surely be viewed with suspicion.
Still, into battle we plunged, regardless, Mrs. Mo and I, to test our mettle against the finest Ancient Greece could throw at us:
The plot:
Theseus, an everyman sort who just happens to be built like the proverbial brick shithouse, is a man on a mission. Protected by Zeus - though he is unaware of this - he feels it is his destiny to save his people from the evil tyranny of King Hyperion, a man with a mission of his own: to get his grubby, steroid bloated mitts on The Epirus Bow, a weapon so powerful it can be used to unleash The Titans, imprisoned beneath a mountain by the Gods, there to dwell for all eternity.
So, the Gods observe the mortal struggle beneath, forbidden by Zeus to intervene unless The Titans are indeed released, but Athena and some other God are none too keen to follow the rules....
Confused?
Well, you should be, but it matters not one jot as the plot is the purest nonsense, and merely serves as a vehicle for much chest-beating and pompous speech-making and rabble rousing, as well as the occasional burst of the old ultra-violence.
Whilst everything about this is a load of old cock-rot, I couldn't help but be swept along by the sheer theatre of it all, as muscular, oiled men and buxom wenches paraded around in togas, the ensemble completed by the fake, epic backdrop that 300 made such splendid use of.
Talking of oiled young men, in one moment of genuine post-modern genius, the plot calls for a bunch of swarthy sorts to swim through an ocean of oil so that, when they emerge, they are glistening and smeared, compelled to drench their forms in water to rid themselves of the slick. I laughed out loud at the audacious home-eroticism of the whole thing.
Marvellous.
My personal deviances aside, this is a rollicking good swords and sandals fantasy that, with just a shade more action, could have easily reached the bombastic heights of 300.
It didn't, but it wasn't a million miles away, either.
4 out of 5
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