Horrible

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2010)

When I first saw the trailer for 300, I thought, "This movie seems pretty epic. I might check it out next weekend." However, after I had watched 300, I wanted my money back. There are so many flaws in this movie that I don't even know where to start. I'll start with the action, because it is what this movie is most well known for.
I always cringe when I think of this movie's special effects and action scenes. I'm guessing that over half of this movie's running time is in slow motion. All of the fight scenes just phase to slow motion, go back to normal time, go to slow motion, back to normal time, and so on. I usually enjoy fight scenes like this, but the action was just so repetitious that I got bored in 10 minutes. It was literally like this: Spartan guy runs forward and stabs Persian in the chest in slow motion. Then, he runs towards another Persian and stabs him through the chest. Next, he dashes forward and chops off a Persian's head. This sequence repeats itself over and over again. BORING.
Now onto the characters, if you could call them that. Throughout the film, I saw them (the Spartans) as invincible supersoldiers who run around naked. It was simply impossible for me to actually like any of the Spartan characters, because they were pretty much invulnerable robots. The Persians on the other hand, were portrayed as weak barbarians who've never seen swords before. They were like robots too. The only character who I actually didn't hate was that hunchback guy. He actually showed some emotion (unlike the Spartans and Persians), but the "story" didn't go deep enough for me to actually give a damn about him.
This paragraph is supposed to be dedicated to dialogue. Except that there was almost none in 300 except for the infamous line, "This is madness... THIS IS SPARTA!!!" which is made fun of all over the internet. The rest of the dialogue in this movie (maybe 10 lines or so) is conveyed without a single shred of emotion.
The only aspect that I actually liked in this film was the sound effects/music. The sound effects were pretty good; the sounds of swords clanging and the screams of dying Persians were very realistic sounding. The music was also amazing. However, if you want to hear the music in this film, go look up the soundtrack. Stay away from the movie.
"What about the historical aspect of this film? Isn't 300 supposed to be based on a true story?" 300 isn't history; it is fiction. The last time I checked, 300 Spartans never held back 1 million Persians for several days during the Battle of Thermopolae (spelling?). The last time I checked, Spartans didn't go into battle wearing nothing but loincloths. The last time I checked, Xerxes wasn't this 10 ft tall naked man who wore hundreds of body piercings. You get my point? There are just so many historical inaccuracies in 300 that it would take me over a day to list them all. I can't imagine how historians felt when they saw this sad excuse for a movie.
Like I said before, STAY AWAY FROM 300. AWAY!!! You'll surely regret it, unless you're the type of person who likes to watch naked men killing hordes of brown people in slow motion.