Movie Notes: 300

January 7th, 2008

= 4 stars

Starring Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West
Directed by Zack Snyder

Synopsis

King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) must defend Sparta against invading Persians using a tiny army of 300 warriors.

The Good

• Every shot is artfully staged and balanced from an artist’s eye.
• The overall look (including near seamless CGI) is so highly stylized and processed, it’s almost like a new kind of filmmaking.
• All who rent this film expecting action will be pleased to find several over-the-top battles, many of which feature spraying blood, collapsing corpses, and changing film speeds — fascinating to watch.
• At a basic level, most action films are essentially super-tough men acting manly and beating the crap out of weaker foes. 300 doesn’t hide from this and actually revels in it.

The Bad

• The plot is very simplistic and has very little character development. King, queen, country, enemy, man, woman, war. We have little reason to support Sparta other than the king is gloriously macho and has great abs.
• I strongly doubt the historical accuracy of everything seen here.

Conclusion

Compared to other action flicks, 300 is a cut above. Although many of the more typical fantasy flick elements appear (deformed monsters, rains of arrows, decapitations, creepy oracles) they’re presented so well that I didn’t find them that ridiculous. Ultimately, I did eventually find myself rooting for the Spartans and wallowing in the gushes of blood and gore. Lastly, I give it extra credit for sticking so closely to the comic — much as Sin City stayed true to the source, so does 300 — and it’s all the better for it.

IMDB: 300
Wikipedia: 300
Rotten Tomatoes: 300 60%