better than the trailers make it look

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2007)

I actually didn't expect to like this movie after seeing the previews. Most previews take the best part of movies and leave a lot of flatness. This one was vice versa. The previews give an indication of the fallacies of this movie. The director tried to emulate Japanese classics too much. The easy flowing ballet like movements make the battle scenes too comical. It may work in a one on one confrontation when you're dealing with characters who are personifications instead of real people (as in THE FOUR ASSASSINS), but it is ridiculous when dealing with historical people. As far as historical accuracy, literary leeway is always given, and this film deviates as much as any film. First, the Persians in the movie were depicted as Africans. Persians (Iranians) were not black. This was probably done because the director wanted to cast certain people. Also, Xerxes was not eleven feet tall, and rhinos were not bigger than train cars. This, again, is bad film directing. Apparently, the director wants to give the impression that the Spartans saw them this way, but it really doesn't fit into the Spartan character. Another fallacy is the deformed character. The film tries to indicate that the Spartans practiced good science in knowing when a baby would grow up weak. They had no such science, and the odds of a baby being left alone to die, still surviving, and yet being weaker than the Spartans was frankly impossible. That said, the film was better than I anticipated. The characters were fairly likable and as complex as characters of that age could be. Xerxes was depicted as a rather likable despot, one who didn't have the modern day sadistic side that any other movie maker would have given him, but wouldn't have fit in an ancient world that never heard of sadism. I didn't care for the narration part, but it didn't really alter my rating. In fact, disregard most of the critiques. Many of them praise the wrong thing. The film lacked artistry and had bad action scenes, but the dramatics and characters were well defined.