300 outa 300!!

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2007)

This is one of my picks for film of the year and it was finally released in Ireland last week and I have finally gotten to see it! There is no doubt that the trailer for The 300 is one of the best trailers out there. It looked fantastic, although fantastic trailers sometimes turn out to be much better than the movies themselves, for a reference see Miami Vice.
I was not disappointed.
I was also not at the battle of Sparta myself (although towards the end i was so into the film i nearly got out of my seat and joined the Spartan front line), so I don't care that it was not an accurate historical account of the battle.
OK so the scenes with talking, mostly those involving the Queen and the Council (there is clearly deleted scenes, one of which will no doubt involve the Queen and the Traitor, and will probably be included in the extended edition, after we have all bought the original DVD), were used by the vast majority of the cinema audience for bathroom breaks and the dialogue was a bit cheesy in parts, but it didn't matter. The battle scenes, backgrounds and music more than made up for it. It was one of the few movies that i have seen where i could have just watched them fight without any talking at all.
As with all sports movies, we only focus on a few of the team and to follow that rule we only get to know about 5 of The 300. The King, The Captain, The Quiet One, The Comedy One and The Young One. All of whom were great in their own roles. The Persian leader, was freakishly tall and covered in gold was scary looking and had wonderfully plucked eyebrows and some of the characters like the Deformed Spartan who looked like Gollum's ugly cousin looked great too. Although at the end Deformed Spartan wore this ridiculously pointy hat which caused a giggle to run through the cinema There was a fantastically choreographed fight scene involving The Comedy One and The Young One, it was like a dance. All of the battle scenes were great. From Rhinos, to elephants, and the scene where the Spartans pushed the Persians into the sea where just so well done. The film really worked with the stylised look.
the whole rock music theme really worked. The was a scene where the Spartans were all walking toward the Persians with the music blaring loudly was stolen right out of any football movie you care to chose Some of the great lines from the Trailer where there. The "Tonight we dine in hell" one was my favourite from the trailer but when The Comedy One said his "fight in the shade line" i think that i actually swooned. The "no retreat, no surrender" line brought a smile to my face as its the title of a bad Jean Claude Van Dam movie and can also be found on some old murals which lurk around over here (Ireland!) One of my friends complained that the Spartans were all Scottish. I didn't mind. If you want to pick a group of tough people who will fight to the death to protect their country and family you might as well pick anyone with a Celtic background (Celts never back down from a fight!! lol).
One of the downsides was the fact that with the exception of the Queen, all the women whether they be oracles or slave whores all had to have at least one breast showing. There were that many overly pointy nipples on screen at one stage i thought about going to A&E afterwards to make sure i was normal!!! I also appreciate that slow mo makes battle scenes look more impressive and there was a lot of slow mo used in this film and all of it worked don't get me wrong, but the film only lasted about 1h45mins. If it was all played at normal speed we would've been finished in about an hour. Not exactly value for money.
I like the fantasy element of the battle. I didn't mind the big dumb ogre and the big fat thing with spikes for hands but i draw the line at Sitar playing Goat. It looked so bad it could've been an extra from the Jabba the Hut dance scene in Star Wars.
Overall I would give this movie a 9/10. Just for the look of it. The writers aren't going to win any awards for the dialogue etc but the movie worked better when no body spoke at all. There was some comedy throughout the film and I would've liked more screen time for The Comedy One but only because he was my favourite Spartan. It loses a point for the sitar playing goat only because it was so out of place, even in this film! I will buy the DVD when it comes out, but this is a film that will only work best when you see it in the cinema, my tiny 6 speaker surround sound will not do the film justice at all.