Comical

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 2008)

Do you like to watch thickly muscled beefcake slicing swarthy enemies to ribbons under a copper colored sky? Then '300' is for you. Otherwise, stay far away from this cornball pseudo-epic that falls flat in nearly every facet.
This is a flick that takes itself way too seriously while shamelessly borrowing from superior movies; among them 'Braveheart' and 'Lord of the Rings.' From the opening scene viewers are besieged with hollow speechifying and colloquial dialogue. Forget about any history lesson, '300' is all about the spectacle of slow motion CGI bloodletting, makeup effects, and the fine art of facial piercing.
Cardboard characters predominate the green-screen, er,landscape...plot twists are as subtle as a spear to the gut. It's hard to care about these Spartan warmongerers when there is nothing to a well-toned deltoid interesting about them. Meanwhile, the evil "god king" Xerxes wears purple lipstick and is about as threatening as Prince during his "Purple Rain" era. (Great album, though. Listen to that instead of watching this.)
Yes, there are a couple of cool fight scenes. The best early on when the Spartans literally push a horde of enemies into the sea. However, any political subtext, i.e. "freedom isn't free," is lost in the rest of this silly excuse for a war epic.