The 300 franchise falls short with its 2014 sequel “300: Rise of an Empire,” directed by Noam Murro.

Greek military commander Themistocles (Sullivan Stapelton, “Gangster Squad”) leads a naval attack against Persian forces led by Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, “300”), a “god,” and his mortal sister Artemisia (Eva Green, “Quantum of Solace”) a ruthless, vengeful villain.

Themistocles attempts to unite all divisions of Greece to defeat the Persians, but finds himself struggling to attain the Spartans dominant help. This movie disappoints in comparison to its predecessor “300”.

Murro’s directing flops and is inferior compared to Zack Snyder’s, the director of the original “300”, “Man of Steel” and “Watchmen”-who was perplexedly not picked to dire t the sequel.

The movie fails in two major components: computer-generated imagery (CGI) and acting.

The CGI was subpar at best. Any scene not “up-close and personal” showed CGI similar to 90s videogame graphics and characters who looked mechanical and unnatural.

The acting, which proved quite unsavory, felt incredibly lame and inadequate considering the hype.

Green (Artemisia) and Stapleton (Themistocles) played the two major roles but performed the worst.

Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo) and David Wenham (Dilios), who were both in the original “300”, surprisingly enough appeared best on screen.

The CGI in the original was outstanding, for its time, and the acting was exceptional and of good quality.

Aside from the disappointing factors, the continuation of the “300” storyline /writing was interesting enough to not walk out of the theater midway.

The 2006 “300” brought a new visual style for its time, which viewers were entranced by.

In 2014, Murro had to work with an old, cliché graphic style in order to not stray far from the original.

The budget for “Rise of an Empire” should have invested heavily in acting and CGI. If those two facets of the film would have been improved, Murro may have had a major success.