If you really liked the movie 300 but you thought it was too arty and didn't have enough beheadings, blue capes, boats, boobs, choke-sex, plastic-looking digital blood, or voice-overs, you're in luck! 300: Rise of an Empire is the movie for you. Empire isn’t so much a sequel to 300 as a side-quel, in which the (much more interesting) events of 300 happen simultaneously with this film. To remind you of that fact, characters continually make reference to King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, and we occasionally see flashbacks from the first film. In case you can’t tell, this is a bad movie. But it’s also kind of insane, in an almost admirable way. (PAUL CONSTANT)