Made clearly to capitalize on the popularity of 300, Rise of an Empire is something like collected behind-the-scenes from the Persian invasion featured in 300. Whereas the first film chronicled, ab by ab, the Spartans’ heroic stand in the Battle of Thermopylae against Xerxes’s Persian invasion, Rise of an Empire is about the concurrent naval fight, the Battle of Artemisium.

With more thunder thighs than in a Silk Smitha retrospective, 300’s sequel displays yet again the perils of pitting bare-chested fighters against a cavalry of archers. More clothes could do the trick in the inevitable sequel, in which The Man with the Golden Underwear will be given more to do than just distract audiences from the unrelenting carnage.