Gorgeous brutality excuses all flaws in 300
Zack Snyder’s 300 shouldn’t work. An adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name, the film aims for stylized beauty and breath-taking visuals while keeping a comic book feel. On top of that, it tries to be more manly than a WWE main event. With all these disparate parts trying to fit into an hour-and-a-half movie, 300 should be a confused picture bogged down by too many elements to truly take off.
But everything works. 300 balances all the conflicting elements without breaking a sweat, never letting one element flex its muscle more than the others, creating a balanced and enjoyable action romp. It’s a bloody and beautiful Greek epic, all magnificent vistas and artistic gore splattering around, much in the same vein as other recent ancient-times dramas, minus some of the brains. Call it the meathead’s Gladiator.
Based around the actual Battle of Thermopylae, 300 follows Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 299 other Spartan soldiers in their fight against the Persian Empire, led by the imposing Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). The Persian army outnumbers the Spartans immensely, a million strong to 300. But Leonidas and his men enter battle anyway. They don’t care about afraid of defeat or death, but rather how many of Xerxes men they can take down. In a side story, Leonidas’ wife Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) tries to convince the Greek tribunals to send more men to fight the Persians, in an effort to save the man she loves from death.
Compared to other old-world thrillers like Gladiator and Troy, 300’s plot isn’t terribly innovative. It’s the same story of epic war with overriding themes of honor and dignity. But is a recycled story such a problem? Not when you drape it with gorgeous backgrounds and (most importantly) cram it with plenty of fist-pumping action. The film plods along until Leonidas and his men reach the battlefield, where the plot simply becomes “watch a bunch of muscular men plunge swords into ninjas and rhinos.” This is when 300 is at its brutal best. The minor plot, centered around Queen Gorgo, slows down the picture significantly, prying the viewer away from the jaw-dropping war grounds for what amounts to a sub-par political drama with more (fewer?) boobs.
300 does bloodshed best, and the people behind the splatter-full film know it. The majority of the movie centers on the actual fight at Thermopylae, a bloody and gory affair (hope you like decapitations, I counted four!). The fight choreography flows perfectly, a mixture of classic military fighting and brawling found in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But what sets the conflict in 300 apart from other films of its sort is how artistic the violence is. Blood spurting out of soldiers isn’t just a goopy red liquid; it becomes strokes of red more common to canvas than celluloid streaking across the screen. Spartan warriors move in and out of slow and fast motion, capturing all the glory and gruesomeness of the battle along the way. The film oversteps the artistic limits sometimes (slow-mo doesn’t need to be used that much), but 300’s battle scenes stand as some of the most pretty you’ll see in a war movie.
The beauty doesn’t end at the killing fields. 300 as a whole is a breathtakingly gorgeous film. Shot entirely behind bluescreens, the movie’s backdrops are achingly beautiful, majestic mountains rising over an angry sea pounding into the coast. The shots of Xerxes’ massive army forming on the beaches are equally impressive, a feast for the eyes. Snyder’s picture is stunning to look at, even when coated in blood.
The acting in 300 does exactly what it should do: Move the plot along just enough so more killing can commence. All the actors involved do their jobs (be ripped and look badass) great, so they can be excused for sometimes sounding kinda corny when screaming out lines. 300’s dialogue fizzles a fair amount of the time, mostly composed of uninteresting banter and cheesy one-liners ripped straight from the pages of a seventh grader’s history book (“Come home with your shield, or come home on it”). Still, the character’s lines aren’t why this film exists, so these oversights can be ignored when the spears start flying.
300 combines violence and visual beauty magnificently, creating a world both brutal and beautiful. Snyder’s latest effort shines, and will surely have viewers pumped after watching Leonidas’ epic stand against the Persian army. 300 may not be the brainiest ancient-times movie, but it is one of the most exhilarating and fun ones you’ll ever see.
Need something more light-hearted? Check out our review of Wild Hogs. Or you can return home.
300 is just stupid. No acting, no plot, no logic and even the action is often stupid. The repetitive slow-motion fights just aren’t exciting: It’s the same spear stab over and over again. A technical and visual achievement I suppose, but it’s not enjoyable to watch.
As a connoisseur of war movies and bloodshed, I found this stuff pretty silly.
Also, Xerxes has millions of soldiers but only one rhino?
Tom Giratikanon
March 9, 2007 at 1:56 pm
After watching 300 for a second time today, I’ll admit, it doesn’t hold up nearly as well as after my first viewing. The plot was a lot stupider this time around, and the dialogue was….not good at all.
Still, I stand by my assertion 300 is a great mindless, action flick, and it does battles well. It’s a gorgeous looking film, even if other elements of the movie aren’t that great.
And yeah, I don’t get the rhino thing either.
Patrick St. Michel
March 9, 2007 at 2:15 pm
“300″ may be gorgeous-looking (the trailer is pretty, I guess), but I would hesitate to call it “film.” Film captures the physical world. “300″ is a fanboy’s digital rendering of what he would like the world to look like–”The Fountain” for stupid people.
I think Nathan Lee roasted the movie best in his Village Voice review: “Long ago there reigned a clan of Speedo-wearing militaristic psychopaths called the Spartans. They lived beneath a copper-colored sky, on a copper-colored land, amidst copper-colored fields, in copper-colored homes made from copper-colored stone. Legend has it they would outline their copper-colored pecs and abs with ash to enhance their manly buffness, and yet these were men of action and honor, not ‘philosophers and boy lovers’ like their namby-pamby rivals the Athenians.”
Paul Schrodt
March 11, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Why are we holding the movie to the standards of reality? “Film captures the physical world”? Not always — film makes art out of it. Now, 300 might be bad art because it doesn’t say anything useful, but to dismiss it on the sole grounds that it’s ridiculous is to dismiss any sci fi film, or anything by tarantino, or… yeah (I know that’s not what you’re trying to say because you mention The Fountain, but that’s what it sounds like). It’s a super-stylized version of a set of events that only sort of happened, but it has its place for people willing to suspend their disbelief completely. That said… it’s really dumb. But you don’t have to be stupid to enjoy some part of it.
Spencer
March 11, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Maybe I should clarify. “300″ is a “feature film” because it’s 117 minutes of moving images and sound, but it’s stylized and digitized to a point where I would no longer call it “filmic.” I would not call a lot of the action scenes in the latter “Matrix” movies filmic either. “The Fountain” is trickier because it uses special effects techniques that could be called much more filmic. But the aesthetic of “300″ has much more in common with a cut scene from your real-time strategy game of choice than it does, say, the original “300 Spartans” film from 1962. Gamers, fanboys and, yes, Tarintino crazies, might assert that this plastic-y aesthetic has its merits. Personally, I found things like the bits of obvious CG in “Lord of the Rings” distracting and annoying. But maybe there is some merit to this sort of aesthetic. I still think it’s worth making the distinction and recognizing that what we’re looking at when we watch “300″ is something entirely different from the film we have been used to looking at for a century of cinematic history.
Paul Schrodt
March 11, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Before calling “300″ a “reused” and a fan-boy feast for the “stupid,” suck up your Northwestern “filmic” pretentiousness (by the way “filmic” is NOT A WORD) and embrace the story. Yes, if the plot was contrived from thin air, the movie may not seem to be that significant. But please, do some research on the history of this battle. Miller does here was our imaginations do. The legacy of these types of battles live on in the human psyche as not typical cinematic engagements of dialog, but of swirling colors and valiant movement. THIS IS HOW they reside in our imaginations! Do you ever think of Spartans having intricate conversations regarding the multifaceted dimensions of homosexuality in our society. NO, NO, NO, and again NO. 300 is a MASTERFUL FEAT.
Joseph H
March 12, 2007 at 8:54 am
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
filmic
SYLLABICATION: film·ic
ADJECTIVE: Of, relating to, or characteristic of movies; cinematic.
OTHER FORMS: filmi·cal·ly —ADVERB
make sure you know what you are talking about before you type it.
Emily Hoffman
March 12, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Not having seen 300, i’m not going to assume to judge it, but I have seen “300 Spartans” (1962). While that film in of itself is not a great feat of feature filmmaking, it is a very entertaining and interesting movie. It depicts the Spartans as methodical and practical soldiers, who wear, you know, armor and helmets and utilize military strategizing. Again, I haven’t seen 300, but I want to point out that even as we suspend disbelief and reality, we don’t necessarily have to dumb down our characters in favor of spectacle and style. I would agree that the style of the movie seems to hold a certain allure and perhaps captures how we imagine the event, but that doesn’t necessarily make it great cinema. I am NOT saying 300 doesn’t have substance, I’m just saying that Paul’s point about there existing a line between what is filmic (yeah, it’s a word dude) and what I’d call digital/visual masturbation is well taken. Substance should inform style, and not the other way around (see: orginal Star Wars triology versus recent one) When the style becomes all that’s important, it’s probably become something closer to a video game than a film. All that being said, I’m going to see this movie anyway because now I’m curious.
By the way, get a vocab and stop taking at shots at people via these comments.
Matt Mckenna
March 12, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I think Rodriguez is a much better model of the ‘plastic-y aesthetic’ than Tarantino.
Tommy Rousse
March 13, 2007 at 6:38 am
all of you:
-read Heroditus, The Histories
-read Gates of Fire
-stop being silly
Ben Mackenzie
March 14, 2007 at 10:52 am
When I reviewed it, I came to the conclusion that it was a good one to watch one time for the visuals. After thinking about it for a while, I can’t say anything different. It was a lot of effort for a movie I don’t see most people ever wanting to buy and watch again here and there. I don’t even think the visuals (which are great, of course) can make this one a classic.
McGhee
July 10, 2008 at 8:49 am