ridiculous as cinema

Rating: 3/10 (17 August 2007)

'300' can be located in the antiquity historical films genre that gave a few very good movies, just to mention 'Gladiator' and the TV series 'Rome'from the later success stories. Films in this genre usually succeed when they are true to the spirit of the times and the human dimension of the heroes and fail when they try to make a point and send messages that fit our times rather than the past. '300' makes all the possible mistakes already made in the bad category genre plus a few new ones.
The story of the battle at Thermopylae where the 300 Spartans faced the mighty army of the evil empire of those times is told in a bombastic manner, with off screen commentaries and heroes tirades that sound more fit to the parliaments nowadays. It would be an insult to the comics books to say that the characters have the depth of comics books characters. The whole representation of the different nations in conflict is full of stereotypes, and does not seem to care too much about historical details.
The only good parts in the film are some of the visuals, but even here what I read about the techniques used or invented to make this movie was more efficient than what I could see on the screen, maybe also because a wrong choice of the palette of colors that makes the landscape look in many occasions like some old-fashioned studio setting from the 50s - exactly what the creators of the effects intended to avoid. The fight scenes are fine, but fight scenes do not make a whole movie nowadays. As cinema '300' is a complete failure.