Movie: 300
General Info
Title: 300
Year: 2007
In Short
191 BC - Persian God-King Xerxes comes to Greece and brings along all of his human and sub-human fighter slave army to conquer the place. Everybody’s shaking in their boots except King Leonidas of the Spartans. He will stop the mighty invaders with his small non-sanctioned army of just 300 men.
It’s a comic book!
Yep, sorry for all those with a fixed opinion about the genre, but 300 is a comic book, written and illustrated by one of the greats of the biz: Frank Miller.
The story isn’t his of course, it’s his interpretation of the legendary Battle of Thermopylae. And mister Miller does love his fighting stories..
The Movie
Visuals
Kaboom! From the opening scene to the closing titles: Kaboom! You get blown away.
Now, after quite some years of over the top computer graphics, you’d think you’d be kinda done seeing the stuff, but the way the effects are applied in this movie is incredible. What I really liked was the dark-brown ancient feeling they used and while you know it’s all fake, you get to enjoy a great suspension of disbelief, visuals-wise.
Plot
Ah.. well.. Not much to say: a small band of heroes fighting of a way, waaaaaay larger group of “evil men”. Hey, everybody roots for the underdog. It’s classical (no pun intended) storytelling - not really great in quality, but just a great bedtime story adventure thingy. Works for me.
There was even some political commotion from Iranian politicians and commentators that the movie was vilifying the Persians (Iran’s ancestors) - which was funny, I guess..
Cast
Not really any performances that stand out - the cast does work hard in realizing director Zack Snyder’s vision.
Conclusion
I enjoyed the movie coz I got what I expected: over the top macho muscle entertainment without any real heavy cerebral challenges. But that’s what some blasphemers think of Spartacus..
It’s also a comic book made to a movie and like Miller’s previous movie success, Sin City, you can sense the comic book feeling that dominates the movie. And that’s a tough job to accomplish, kudos.
I read that Snyder’s working on the filming of the movie version of Alan Moore’s in-frigging-credible Watchmen and judging by his work on 300, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Just a little bit..
Rating: 
(remember the Trojans Spartans)
