Blood and testosterone.

Rating: 1/10 (11 September 2015)

This film is the adaptation of a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, and also the story of Leonidas and three hundred Spartan soldiers who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC). As we all know, the battle ended with the defeat of Spartans, but with major casualties in the Persian army, which was important to raise the morale of the Greeks for the following matches (Salamis and Plataea). Directed by Zack Snyder (who also wrote the screenplay with Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon), this movie features Gerard Butler in the lead role, Leonidas.
This film is not an epic similar to others we know: this movie is an hard-rock epic with a teen spirit, biceps and testosterone. This film is like a wrestler full of anabolic steroids and drenched in marijuana. The picture is ugly, brownish, blood is what matters to show, not the story. The costumes are clearly invention based on the graphic novel that, unfortunately, is in the film origin. The protagonist, Leonidas, is a beast full of blood-lust who Buttler lends undeserved talent. The villain, the Persian emperor Xerxes, is a devilish and effeminate creature covered in gold and mounted on a golden wedding cake, to which called the Brazilian Rodrigo Santoro (perhaps by any actor in Hollywood have allowed himself to pay similar humiliation?). Anyway ... this movie was a way to Hollywood please a teenage audience endowed with the sensitivity of a boxing glove and hungry for pure-hard action.