A misunderstood visual mastery.

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2007)

After seeing the film, reading comments from its makers, and digesting the reviews of my fellow viewers/critics I have some things to say that might clear up confusions on more popularly criticized points.
It is plainly obvious many people went into to this movie not expected the right thing and misread it almost entirely. It is not a historical fiction like Troy or Gladiator, it is a historical fantasy. The clothing, idealism (though modernized), and portrayal of the era are quite accurate. The physics of the fighting and the story as told are the fantastical parts.
The Persians are displayed as monstrous in the movie to create stark contrast with the Spartans, simply to add cinematic emphasis, not as an insult or political comment. Bodys are portrayed in the pinnacle of classical Greek form, while the blood is used as an extension of digital art. The lighting and color scheme is shot to mimic that of the graphic novel, which was done well.
Character dimension is narrow but deep. An off-shoot to a theatre technique call 'the alienation theory', Snyder does not want the audience to connect to the character's entirely but the idea that is 300, displayed through its characters.
The point of 300 was to create a true recreation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, which it did and very well. Along with it come amazing cinematography, a menagerie of digital artistry, a driven idea and story that is short and simple, and truly a movie that captures the beauty of the human form in movement; a celebration of the Greek artistic ideals in many ways. However, it is a completely uninhibited view of this both in violent and sexual content. In fact my only dilemma with 300 is its nudity and sexual content. With or without it, 300 is still an 8 in my rating and I hope this review helped you see 300 in a different light that changed or expanded your incite about this film.