Movie: 300
Starring: Gerald Butler, Dominic West, and Lena Headey
Directed by: Zack Snyder
My Critique: 3 Stars
Back in 2005, Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City was made into a film directed by Robert Rodriguez, the director of Spy Kids and Shark boy and Lava girl. Sin City was a complete success, in my mind, how it sucked you in to the city's twisted policies and adventures, without really going over the top. An admirer of Miller's work, I anticipated every second before seeing 300.
Opening night at the Galaxy Guelph; I arrive half an hour before with my dad and a friend. We enter the cinema, get our tickets checked and enter the packed theatre then the room goes dark; people cheer. It is on.
300 starts off very well (first half), with a good opening showing how King Leonidas (Butler) came to be such a strong warrior (and king), and somewhat dies from the three-quarter mark to the ending. The good things about Sin City were the directing, dialog, acting, character analysis, and cinematography. 300 had about three of these: dialog, cinematography, and acting.
Dialog was top-notch, a bit wordy and overly-poetic, but it fed us some very good lines, such as when the messenger from Persia yells at Leonidas, "This is blasphemy, this is madness!" The King replies, "This is Sparta!" and kicks the messenger into a well.
The acting is excellent as well; Butler nails the role as Leonidas and Rodrigo Santoro (TV show, Lost) proves himself worthy as the 'god' Xerxes, the transvestite-looking king of Persia.
Lastly, the cinematography was beautiful, the texture of the filming, the glowing of the sun, and of course, the slow-mo; I know it's been done but I am a sucker for slow-mo, and I just loved the use of it in this film, especially at the first battle scene (my favourite battle scene in the movie) when the first group of Persians attack and get slaughtered by the Spartans. I also loved how original the film was; it is a war movie, but it is different because it was much more extreme (rock music playing during the battles, insane monsters with axes, a sky full of arrows, beautiful costumes, and a tasteful amount of blood and decapitated limbs flying through the battlefield).
The problems I had with the movie are aspects I shouldn't have with Frank Miller based movies: first off the character analysis is very thin; you just don't learn enough about the characters, which is important for a historic battle movie. Secondly, its use of historical detail is lacking to a great extent; you learn a bit about the Spartan's way of life and the famous battle of Thermopylae, but it is very minimal.
Finally, the film was extremely "bombastic", as my dad calls it. The word bothers me, but it is true. For example, almost every quote by Leonidas involves him screaming, "Tonight we die in hell!"
What hell? Is it the true hell of Hades, the hell of slaughter on the battlefield, or the annexation of Sparta by Xerxes and Persia? The film could have been more detailed with out abruptly starting the voyage to battle and then summarizing the ending, which goes over the top and is over-filmed.
As a whole, 300 was pretty good. It was nowhere near as good as Sin City, but I believe this was the result of the choice of director. Robert Rodriguez is very talented and I am sure he could have made this movie even better, if he had directed it. However, in my opinion this film is 'sick' and entertaining; just don't expect to learn a heck of a lot.
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