Boring

Rating: 2/10 (7 August 2008)

While the colorists did an amazing job, the lack of story and over-reliance on slow-motion made this movie one of the most boring I've seen in a long time. Essentially, this movie is a long battle, intercut with pointless back story that is so facile that it provides absolutely no depth to the one-dimensional characters. While the battle initially has some mild entertainment value (although it's a pale imitation of violence in the Matrix), it quickly becomes fatiguing. Unless you enjoy exaggerated blood splatter sounds and seeing limbs cut off for the sake of limbs getting cut off, there isn't much to engage the audience.
The director seems to think audiences don't appreciate the difficulty of fighting human foes, so it pits the Spartans against numerous monsters and hyper large beasts. Yet, with no context and an unending stream of slow-motion violence, the monsters and gigantic beasts don't provide any thrills: they're not scary or menacing. They come, they get killed, they are forgotten.
The movie has other problems, but I fear mentioning them will have readers discount how boring the action is.