Absolutely the best venal movie since Birth Of A Nation

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2007)

What can you say about 300, a movie that is one long and woozy love letter to the ancient, war loving Spartans? That pictures infanticide and extreme child abuse as an admirable form of social engineering? Where the light skinned and English accented heroes slaughter vast numbers of their dark and stupid foes? Where to be a woman is to proudly bear sons for the Fatherland and stand by your man as he swaggers off to suicidal carnage? Where to be old, sick, malformed or effeminate is to be evil? That proudly wears its fascistic heart on its national socialist sleeve? Well, what you could say is that it is one fantastically entertaining movie!
300 tells the story of the three hundred Spartans who held off the entire Persian army at Thermopylae. Sparta runs afoul of the Persians by refusing to submit to their rule. Treachery rears its ugly head and good King Leonidas is forbidden to use the Spartan legions to lay waste to the enemy. He sets out with three hundred doughy volunteers to hold the eastern horde off long enough for the Spartan senate to come to their senses. The eventual fate of Leonidas and his comrades is one of the most famous stories of ancient times and 300 more than does it justice.
There are no real stars in 300 though Gerard Butler has a star-making role as Leonidas. He handles spear, beefcake poses and faux-Shakespearian dialog with equal aplomb. Lena Headey is very good as Queen Gorgo but can't rise above the fact that she is a chick hanging out in a boy's club. Her role is primarily to look decorative and stoic in equal measures. Beyond these two and perhaps Dominic West as a dodgy member of the Spartan senate or Rodrigo Santoro as the ten foot tall and supremely swishy Xerxes, there isn't a member of the cast well known or forceful enough to stand out from the rest. Everyone involved delivers fine performances but the fact is their roles are subservient to the design, emotionality and heedless energy of the piece.
300 is another movie made on a virtual set. That is, with the exception of the actors, most of what you see isn't real, it's computer animated. While perhaps not as amazing as the similarly filmed Sin City or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 300's surreal copper and sepia-toned fever dream of ancient Greece is an achievement in its own right.
300 is being damned and praised by all sides of the political spectrum. The fact is 300 could be used as a motivational tool for just about any group in need of a testosterone fix. It's guaranteed to get your guys on their feet and ready to rumple. Make no mistake though, there have been few truly excellent movies made with such dodgy sentiments since Birth of a Nation. Judged solely on the merits of it's politics 300 brings certain words to mind, "venal" and "pestilent" being the most polite. Judged as adventurous entertainment however, 300 has few equals.
It would be easy to dissect 300 and lambaste its lack of historical veracity. After all the historical Spartans were sort of a bronze age Hell's Angels and were roundly hated by their long suffering neighbors. As to their vaunted militarism, even the effete Athenians were able to kick the tar out of them from time to time. This is all beside the point. 300 was not made for rational discussion. This is a movie made to bypass the frontal lobe and stir the Cro-Magnon id. It is supposed to get its audience frothing at the mouth. This 300 does with such dexterity and malevolent ingenuity as to render it an instant classic of its kind.