I Loved, but I understand

Rating: 10/10 (13 March 2007)

This has to be one of my favorite movies. I am a historical nerd and I know (probably better than most) the inaccuracies of this movie. The phalanx was wrong, the Spartan's wore armor, the Persian Immortals were not zombie-oid. It is highly unlikely that there were elephants, and impossible for there to be rhinos. Xerses didn't believe he was a god, however he was the semi-divine servant of God, etc. etc. However this movie as a whole blew me away. I understood when I saw this movie that it was not meant to be die hard historical accurate (though I am happy they didn't put big S on their shields as I saw some moron do), it was not meant to be fascist racism (though I can understand sort of how you got that idea from). This movie was above all a movie of glory and self sacrifice. It also gave a very good detail about everyday life in Lakonia (except for the Ephors bit). People have given arguments that there are some over macho lines in this movie. And I say, ya but that's how they talked. The Spartan's invented the form of speech referred to as laconic, meaning to give short pointed, often aggressive, responses. The fight in the shade, birth to real men, Persians come and get them, those were all really said by the Spartans. For inaccuracies yes I can understand how it may annoy some people, but this was not about making a documentary on the battle. This movie was about making a legend. It is told in Dilios view to embellish. It was trying to make 300 a version of Greek Mythology, as powerful as the exploits of Herakles. Calling this movie racist is the equivalent of calling The Ten Commandments anti-Egyptian, they just happen to be the enemy of the story, as the Persians are now. Should this movie have come out during a war in Iraq, I will admit probably not. However I'm not here to grade the movie on the politics of the time, but the quality of the movie.