300 was
perhaps the most enjoyable filmgoing experience I have
had in years. I won't claim it's the best movie by any
standards, but I was expecting a highly overrated, unjustly
hyped, and clichéd popcorn flick, and was overwhelmingly
surprised to find that I simply loved this movie. It's
one of those spectacle films best seen in a sold-out theater,
which it seems anyone seeing the movie this weekend will
have the pleasure of experiencing.
The ultimate
underdog story, 300 turns the historical Battle
of Thermopylae in 480 BC into a thing of legends. Led
by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), a small group of Spartan
soldiers (300 of them, to be exact) challenge the 100,000
man army of Persian king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). In one
of the greatest tactical decisions in military history,
Leonidas and his men hold off the hordes in a narrow canyon,
in which the Persians' numbers don't benefit them, and
the Spartans' finely honed fighting skills can best even
the most daunting of forces. Meanwhile, Leonidas' wife
Gorgo (Lena Headey) struggles to persuade Sparta's city
government to send more troops to aid her husband and to
unite all of Free Greece against the invasion.
The film is exquisitely
crafted, even from the very beginning, when young Leonidas
uses the same strategy employed at Thermopylae against
a menacing wolf, foreshadowing the battle to come. As much
as the film is a graphic depiction of ancient warfare,
it has, at its core, a real story, from which it never
strays. As I was exiting the theater, I overheard two teens
complaining that they had to sit through so much story,
and wanted more action. I laughed to myself, because this
was one of the things that made this film stand so much
higher than just about every action film I can think of.
If you're going
into 300 expecting the testosterone-fueled rampage it
might seem like in trailers, you might be disappointed.
It contains its fair share of t&a, lots of gore and
violence, and even some rock and roll music, but it can't
escape the man candy of three hundred beefy hunks in loincloths
which will surely appeal to even the most action-hating
of women.
As much as the
film contains some pretty grisly images and graphic nudity
and violence, I never felt that any of it was extraneous
or existing for its own sake, which I can't say for the
last Frank Miller adaptation, Robert Rodriguez's Sin
City.
In 300,everything is warranted by the plot and
tone of the movie, and fit within the world the filmmakers
created. The violence may be too much for the squeamish,
especially if you have the same decapitation hang-up my girlfriend
does, but I think many will find it well within the realm
of decency given the extreme nature of the film as a whole.
There's no deep
message to be found in 300, but it does handle
the emotions of the characters very well, and the few
tender moments never feel out of place or forced. Much
of this can be attributed to the moving score, which
in its ethereal moments is very beautiful, and the stunning
cinematography. The visuals of this film are nothing
short of miraculous. Hero director
of photography Larry Fong uses many of the same techniques
employed in that Asian epic, but to even more effective
ends in 300. The overexposed, bleached images
provide a harshness that accentuates both the action
sequences and calmer moments in Sparta. During
the high adrenaline segments, he utilizes under- and over-cranking
with better success than I have seen in any of the hundreds
of movies attempting the technique since The Matrix propelled
it into the mainstream. The temporal jolts during the
battle scenes capture the visual style of a graphic
novel or comic book extremely well, leaving characters
suspended in action or flying through the air the same
way a hand-drawn frame would on a printed page.
300 hosts
no particularly standout performances despite its large
cast of characters. This isn't to say that any are notably
poor, but no one impressed me enough to be worth mentioning
individually. Many of the actors had a difficult time
hiding their native accents, which was at times distracting,
and was especially noticeable in Butler's Scottish and
Santoro's Brazilian infelctions. I may also have noticed
it more in these two actors because they had a significant
amount of dialogue and screentime, and thus their performances
were memorable, if only for their relative size.
In the same way
the Spartan subjects of 300 pushed themselves
to extremes in their lifestyle, Snyder and his creative
collaborators have pushed virtually every element of
the film to the limit. The epic quality of this movie
gives a new meaning to the term "Greek myth," in
that it creates a legendary world where giants and Immortals
don't seem out of place in the least. This is anything
but history, but something much better - something that
will make history of its own. This is the first blockbuster
of the year that I think is deserving of its success.
Not only can I not wait for Snyder's upcoming adaptation
of another classic graphic novel, Alan Moore's
The Watchmen, but I honestly can't restrain my anticipation
for seeing 300 again and again.
