300 my review

Rating: 1/10 (28 March 2007)

After seeing this film last night one has to ask ones self if it was called '300' because it felt like you were in the cinema for 5 hours (300 mins)? It has to rank as one of the most pointless and worst films I have ever seen. When the director saw the final cut did he not say to himself "what the hell have I done". It was more like 'Gladiator' meets the 'Chippendale's' but without the quality, depth and entertainment the Chippendales brought to the stage... not to mention that it will not be fit to be displayed on the same shelf as 'Gladiator' when it is released on DVD. But it is not all bad. some of the battle scenes were quite ground breaking (a-la the matrix) but few and far between and to be honest once one battle scene was over the movie did little to expand on the experience other than 'more of the same' - no doubt to keep the '13 year old' Alfa male 'game playing' contingency content. As for the CGI... well, the preceding adverts for the 'Sony Playstation 3' were a good contender to compete with the often 'cartoon like' backgrounds.
So onto the story... 300 Spartans fight a bunch of Persians....Hmm, that is about it... no wait..thrown in are a couple sex secnes and irrelevant plot lines which fail miserably to ignite any interest in this movie. No doubt some women will find he sight of most of the cast draped in red capes exposing their six-packs arousing.. but one has to ask if the actors were picked for their acting ability or their physical appearance?... I think the latter applies. It is scary to think that even the bulging muscles on these actors looked like they had had a little CGI touch up... did I say 'a little'.... well, maybe a tad more than that? .. and if so how did they get the gig.. the mind boggles!
The dialogue was laughable at best and the narration was embarrassing. Every character spoke like that guy who does the action movie trailer voice over's.... you know the one!
CGI has certainly come a long way in 10 years but still lacks the presence and feel of real sets and actors. It has been more than a decade since T2 got the audience to sit up and take notice of what can be achieved with CGI. Little has changed since then apart from one or two movies like 'Jurassic Park' and 'Titanic' ...and in computer terms 10 years is like a millennium...
CGI maketh not the move. We still rely on good old fashioned acting, plot lines, direction, camera work and editing... this movie has none of this and should be avoided at all costs.