All show, no characters

Rating: 4/10 (27 April 2007)

I REALLY wanted to love this film. I'm familiar with the graphic novel and thought it would translate well onto the "big screen." Visually, it does crossover terrifically. This is a gorgeous film to behold--everything from the washed out colors to the remarkable panoramic images are top notch. Everything, despite the often vast scale of events, helps to paint the ultimately claustrophobic atmosphere of war.
UNFORTUNATELY, when time is taken to focus on a character, all we get is cardboard cut-out clichés. Perhaps that was the intent--that in a war everyone thinks mindlessly as one. But it would have been great to get to know more about each of the individual characters. And when we do get a glimpse, there's nothing beyond pat, soap opera duologue. Clearly the bulk of the audience seeing this film is NOT going for penetrating psychological insights. (They'll tell me to see an indie like LITTLE CHILDREN.) But compare this film to something like BAND OF BROTHERS or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN--or a war classic like PATHS OF GLORY--and one can immediately see how far this film falls short of giving us the real story behind this remarkable brotherhood of men who dared the largest army in the world to protect their homeland.
(By the way, there's an intriguing historical error in the film that was made, I'm sure, to make sure all the "guys" in the audience didn't barf: A comment is made by one of the Spartan soldiers that makes clear that Spartan men don't have sex with other men like those people in the other City States. WAY WRONG: The Spartan boys, taken from their homes around 7 years old, were often ENCOURAGED (as they grew older) to develop both emotional and physical relations with the other men in their company--two men were often paired up as "special friends". This didn't mean they were "gay" in our modern sense (which was a message the film makers wanted to avoid)--most had wives and children back in the City. The reason for NOT discouraging such relations was to ensure loyalty and devotion. The thought was that you'd be even MORE willing to lay down your life for a fellow soldier if you had been intimate with him. Once again, this historical gaff in the film says a lot about our heterosexist society. But again, most of the people seeing a film like this are seeing it for the visuals and the "fun" of the action--they're not seeing it for deep psychological insights or historical accuracies.)
So if you want a popcorn-crunching diversion that you can pop in your DVD player, go for it. If you want a real film about the individuals who fight in a war (often for a cause) try FULL METAL JACKET or THE THIN RED LINE.