cool trash or thoughtful critique?

Rating: 5/10 (22 April 2007)

Eye candy for boys--killing and being killed in really cool ways. There are mountainloads of testosterone, evidently to compensate for uneasiness about sexual identity: the Spartans are never not posing their chiseled bodies while the traitor is deformed, evil Xerxes is an effeminate tyrant, and the token woman is, appropriately, to die for. And then there's fascist argument equating good soldiering with good citizenship (as in the more cartoonish Starship Troopers).
At the same time, I suppose we can see it as a critique of our current war in Iraq. Here's what a fight over real freedom looks like; here's what true leaders do in war--all so unlike boy Bush and his nasty Rove entourage.