Nice Action Film

Rating: Null/10 (29 May 2011)

300 (2006)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about three-hundred Spartan fighters who team up to do battle against the much larger Persians. King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads the Spartans as they fight to free themselves, their children and the future of their people. This film is basically a remake of the 1962 film THE 300 SPARTANS, which is probably unknown to many of the people who made this Zack Synder film a monstrous hit when it was first released. It's really pointless to compare the two films because both are going for something else so labeling this a "remake" might be unfair. With that said, I can certainly understand why many people would love this movie but to me there just wasn't enough of a connection to where I'd say I had a good time watching it. I'll admit that the battle scenes are full of great action and one can be impressed with their visual style but that's about all this movie was to me. Nothing but pure visual masturbating and after a while I need something more than just nice images. None of the characters are people we can care for. Why should we care for them? Because the movie tells you they're the good guys. There isn't a single character here that goes through any sort of development and even worse is that the majority of what we're looking out is just some sort of CGI creation so it's even harder to feel anything for them. Roger Ebert notes in his review a good point as it seems the bodies of the actors are all CGI so that they all feature a six pack. Is there a particular reason why the filmmakers thought all three-hundred of these men would have the same body style? I'm sure fans would say that the look is done on purpose and perhaps it was but it's just another example of why I personally couldn't connect to them. Yes, the effects are terrific but again, I just need something more than that. The performances are also fairly hard to judge because they don't have too much to work with and you also have to wonder how much is them and how much is a computer. I'm sure much of this sounds rather harsh and I'm sure it's fair to say that people aren't coming to a movie like this for a story, acting or any type of character development. That's fine but to me there's only so much a visually impressive film can do and that's what makes this a film worth viewing once but while you're going through it it's just hard to care for anything you're seeing.