Producing a sequel is difficult. A lot of the time, those things that made the first movie great, if included in the sequel, will just make it repetitive. On the other hand, making a second movie that does not resemble the first in the slightest will leave all of the fans of the original disappointed. It is a balancing act that, more often than not, ends up with someone falling off one side or another.

“300” was a movie about a small, utterly outnumbered force of skilled combatants fighting for their home and country against decadent invaders. “Rise of an Empire” is similar in many ways, but more than the first it is the story of one man, Themistokles, and his leadership and struggle against overwhelming odds.

At least that’s what it’s supposed to be. “Rise of an Empire” ends up being little more than a bunch of shots of mostly naked men on boats. It might have been reasonable, perhaps, that the original “300” all looked like professional weightlifters. But the men under Themistokles’ command were farmers and craftsmen, as they pointed out several times in the movie, and believing that every single one of a few thousand Athenian volunteers had less than 7 percent bodyfat and was freshly waxed is a bit much. Themistokles’ supposedly brilliant tactics were elementary and would likely have been utterly ineffective against the overwhelming numbers that Artemisia, the antagonist and love interest, could bring to bear.

It was not just that. There was no intrigue, no suspense, no blurring of the lines of good and evil. There were black hats and white hats and they fought in gratuitous bloody spurts, with every attempt to bring moral ambiguity into the picture seeming contrived and shallow. Eva Green portrayed her character, Artemisia, beautifully, but that is the only compliment that I can give to the acting in the movie, and the writing was shallow and weak.

“Rise of an Empire” didn’t shy away from violence, nudity or adult themes like so many modern American movies do, which almost makes it worth watching simply for the grindhouse crowd, but fails by taking itself far too seriously.

This is not to say that “Rise of an Empire” has no redeeming qualities. The visuals are stunning, the cinematography is beautiful, and the whole thing is very much a graphic novel in cinema format. As such, if you are a teenage boy and want to see lots of blood, gore and bare chests (some of them even female), go see this movie. If you are anyone else, you can probably safely skip it.