If you wanted to play a drinking game, you could swig every time CGI blood splashes the camera when someone is stabbed, slashed or otherwise mutilated in this follow-up to 300 (2006). It's more of the same, essentially, telling a parallel story about another big ancient-world battle with a similarly striking visual style and similarly hollow drama and characters.

The Greek general. Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) must unite Greece to fight against the Persian forces led by the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and naval commander Artemisia (Eva Green) who flounces about like a villainess in a soap opera from the 1980s. But at least she is lively and less stolid than many of the men who show off their muscles and make speeches about bravery and such.

There are personal stories as well as the main battle saga but for me it all seemed a little shallow. Still, many enjoyed 300 for its testosterone-laden, bloody action and impressive special effects and there's certainly more of both here.

The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack includes a bunch of featurettes on the background and production of the movie – it is interesting to see just how much of the film was created digitally.