A messenger arrives from a powerful empire to inform a king that his “god” (king) desires dirt and water to be satisfied… taking this message as an invitation to submission under another kingdom’s rule, and a subsequent insult to the king’s wife (and queen) results in the uttering of three words before the king kicks the messenger into a bottomless pit:“THIS IS SPARTA!!”
Gerad Butler offers a superb performance as the passionate Leonidas, King of Sparta in this motion picture adaptation of the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller. The fairly new director, Zack Snyder, brings to the screen a fantastical non-historical depiction of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE in which 300 Spartans faced off against over one and a half million Persian troops bent on conquering Sparta and Greece as a whole. The Persians are led by the god-like Xerxes, played by Rodrigo Santoro, who is exceedingly more generous in the movie than he was in history.
I’m not going to give a full review, but if you haven’t seen this film yet, it is well worth setting aside the money to see at least twice or three times.
The Iranians have recently thrown a fit over the so-called “political overtones” to make Iran look bad, citing elements in the movie such as the Persians being depicted as demonic or inhuman, and lacking the noble qualities of the Spartans… it just goes to show their insecurity has gotten the best of them.
On a side note, I highly recommend buying the Special Edition of the soundtrack… Tyler Bates offers a style that feels like the work of Hans Zimmer mixed with a little Jerry Goldsmith… but the heavy-metal elements make this soundtrack all the more enjoyable to one seeking to embrace the need to quench their barbarian spirit. I haven’t enjoyed a soundtrack like this since Conan The Barbarian and Gladiator.
Go for the action, go for the story, go for the music, go for the special effects, go for the wonderful slow-motion scenes that capture the exact images out of the graphic novel… go because it kicks ass; but most importantly, go because it’s the kind of movie to see on the big screen… and especially on IMAX.
It’s war-- war is alway over-the-top human carnage, don’t blame the film makers, blame reality.
Amazing movie. It was definitely an unexpected box office triumph. I loved it, my girlfriend loved the Spartans with their leather panties. You know, they would be protected a lot better if they wore those Roman skirts on top of those panties :lol:
Worth a look-see. An oldie, but a goodie.
Also, screw the Iranians. Persia INVADED Greece, of course they were the bad guy. The movie does a good job depicting them as the bad guy.
Freedom v. slavery, are the Iranians pro-slavery? If not, then their outbursts are unfounded and ridiculous.
It is a historical movie. It takes on an exaggerated, interpretive role to portray the ideals and power but is nonetheless a historical movie.
I think the directors were too lazy to develop the protagonists and antagonists, and instead made it an epic underdog battle between good and evil…focusing only on the spartan war ethic.
I thought the movie was the shit. I especially liked the way the director slowed down the battle to show one spartan tearing Persians to pieces. If you look close enough, you could see in the background people getting their shit ruined.
Also, it didn’t look like 300 Spartans. I saw maybe like 50 at any given time.
Never quite got to understand why, when asked what is their profession, the three hundred - instead of saying warriors or whatever-, they ululate something resembling “Babu ! Babu!”, like a pack of baboons out on the prowl.
As for the film, very over the top. So over the top, in fact, that after seeing it I went home and watched Half Nelson again.
It was a war cry, dude, obviously. It was to intimidate the Arcadians, who’s leader insulted the Spartans for not bringing an army of sufficient size. I thought the dialogue was great, when Leonidas asked a couple “soldiers” what they did as a profession. One was a potter, another a sculpter, and another a blacksmith.
What was also hilarious was when Leonidas was talking with Xerxes, and mentioned after his shauvenistic comment about women, that Leonides might of been better off bringing his women to the battle instead.
I too liked the movie. However, I would take exception to classifying the acting as good.
The thing that is most puzzling to me is that anyone in Iran should take exception to the depiction of the Persians. The Iranians of today bear little resemblance to the Persians of that time. It would be like having Bush take exception to the depiction of the US, if it were reported that the Chippewas attacked the Crees five hundred years ago.
I agree with Tristan. It was a bad movie. I sensed that the director was trying to make a work of art, using the increasingly popular slowing-down effect. He didn’t succeed.
My advice to potential watchers is: watch Jason and the Argonauts instead.
This movie was horrible…or at least the half that i saw leading up to my turning it off…
Bad acting, script, series of events that seemed absurd, lack of sentiment, artificial heroism, lack of factual basis, clumsy exchanges between characters, and an unoriginal plot line. I nearly thought I was watching a parody of itself at certain moments.
Special effects i know i know, i’m more interested in good films…
I also think this movie sucked. It was nothing but a shallow, showy, expensive, attempt to appeal to the shallow, showy, machismo male American. I hated everything about it. my advice: play a video game instead of watching this movie. you will get all the gore without the corny one liners and horrible acting.
I thought it was very bland. It seemed to lack a lot of things that a movie shouldn’t lack. I also didn’t understand the whole sky thing, I thought it was cool, but it made no sense.
Historical in that it was based on a comic book? It looks just like the comic - in which case it was excellent - just an arty farty rip-em-up. although they had a strange choice for Xerxes as in the comic he’s black -and no matter how much they shave old roberto, he aint passing as a black dude, he came across way too camp to me which he doesn’t in the comic. wonder why they chose him.
I’ve always loved guy films. And this is the most fantastic excuse to sit drooling over 300 oiled men in leather pants.
Massively hammy acting though, but visually stunning.
