New Movies Mar. 7-9: Ancient Greeks and a Talking Dog

After two straight weekends in which the most prominent new movie was an action thriller featuring a not-so-young leading man, this week's new wide releases are something of a change of pace. This week we get a swords-and-armor action spectacular and a Dreamworks animated family flick.

The ancient war movie is "300: Rise of an Empire," the sequel to Zack Snyder's 2007 hit, "300." This new movie about military bloodshed promises the twist of an armor-clad woman (Eva Green) at the head of the ranks, but aside from that, expect it to follow its predecessor's frenetic, violent style. Snyder is focusing on directing superhero movies these days, so this sequel was directed by Noam Murro.

The animated film is "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," a big-screen adaptation of the 1960s cartoon. It's getting mostly positive reviews, but the big question is whether or not "The Lego Movie" has lost enough steam—and it hasn't lost much steam at all over the past several weeks—for a new family movie to take the lead this week.

Last week's new releases—Liam Neeson's "Non-Stop" and "Son of God"—both had modest but not unsuccessful openings. "Non-Stop" his likely to hold over fairly well this week, but chances are that the relatively limited target audience for "Son of God" got its fill of the film last week.