Days of glory

Rating: 10/10 (9 March 2007)

"300" is something to get excited about, just to put that out there. Never before has the glory of battle been such a rousing and intense experience as it is here. Never mind the ho-hum acting from a cast of largely unknown supporting players and the testosterone-driven dialogue of 300 Spartan warriors battling to the death against the massive, 1000+ Persian army of Xerxes (the towering Rodrigo Santoro). The exact historical details of the Battle of Thermopylae in 648 B.C. escapes me, but The History Channel and Frank Miller's original "300" graphic novel do fill me in on some information. Spartan king Leonidas (Scotsman Gerard Butler) leads 299 of his fellow countrymen into the battle against the mammoth Persian army, which outnumbers them 3-1. A great leader and a motivational speaker, he is; the words "retreat" and "surrender" are not in his vocabulary. But their early skirmishes are costly for Xerxes's military forces, who underestimates the will and strategic determination of Leonidas's 300-strong force. The battles grow more and more intense and frequent, with plenty of graphic battlefield carnage to satisfy the gore-hounds of the masses. Back on the home-front, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) is trying to convince the Spartan council to send more reinforcements for her husband's military forces. Since "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) showed much promise for what it could do for his career, director Zack Snyder seems to have a firm grip on the material, even if the plot takes a backseat to the graphic battle scenes in the second half. His eye for detail is overwhelming (even as limbs are lopped off and the body count easily surpasses the thousands), since it pays close attention to Miller's original graphic novel (especially during the closing credits, with artwork lifted directly from the panels). Much of the action is CGI and filmed on sound-stages and against computer-generated backdrops, so the close-quarters combat throws you right in along side the Spartan army. "300" is undoubtedly a success, even if the performers are short-changed in the end. I do wish that the film could have explored more of Spartan culture (since let's face facts, a lot of Americans are not up to par on their world history - including me), instead of just catapulting us into the action with only a few passing lines of dialogue to clue us in on what's going on. The details of Sparta's 300 should live forever, though, because of this film.
10/10