more cartoon than movie

Rating: 2/10 (17 August 2007)

Watching "300" was like reading a comic book or watching a video game -- visually entertaining with often impressive production values, but ultimately distancing itself from its subject matter. If you were looking for compelling drama or narrative, it wasn't to be found here.
With its cartoonish conception and often overblown dialogue, it generated little sympathy or empathy for any of its characters, and gave little opportunity for some of its fine actors to create more than one-dimensional cutout portrayals. This robbed the film of any substantive depth, and reduced it to mostly eye candy for moviegoers who enjoy CGI effects and/or multiple scenes of gore and slow motion decapitations.
I suppose the whole action/fantasy genre of movie-making is more motivated to entertain and excite than move its viewers, but this film should have offered more, as it drew its material from historical accounts. What could have potentially been a well told story enhanced by the amazing computer technology of today to provide grandeur and sweep, instead became something more akin to a Power Station game.