An epic but not quite Gladiator

Rating: 7/10 (20 July 2008)

This movie is entertaining but not enlightening. It carries the weak themes of glory and duty and has a very simple plot line. To be fair to the movie it has subplots but it never really has anything deep. The characters are almost satirically muscular yet the film is meant to be a very serious one. The societies which the film glorifies are horribly flawed. Children are taught to use violence as a means of getting something they want and dieing in battle is the ultimate glory they can achieve. However the adults are never shown to use violence without reason which is completely contradictory of what we are told the society is like at the beginning of the film. The over the top violent people are the Persians and especially the antagonist Xerses. The Persians were a much more developed society than the Spartans which means the film is historically inaccurate as well as contradicting itself. However all these flaws are made up for with the John woo esquire battle scenes (instead of bullet time its spear time) and the epic like dialogue, like "Tonight we dine in Hell!" Many have called this a shallow film, which is as unfair to the director as it is fair. The Spartan society was a shallow society and to portray them as your average Joe wouldn't do them credit. But that being said Zack Snyder could have gone to more of an effort to demonise them.
The cast is as good as you can expect from this movie, just above mediocre. Butler and co. didn't seem to give their best performances ever but the acting isn't totally crap either. The CG effects are pretty good and combined with the action make for a worth while watch.