For those who take their movies seriously...

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 2007)

To begin with, I'd been waiting to see this movie for 6 months, ever since I watched the trailer sometime in October. It promised to be a magnificent mythological war epic, with stirring dialogues, powerful scenes, exotic Gothic style graphics....and so on. Trust me, after seeing the trailer, I thought it was going to be the movie of the year..in fact, I thought Godfather was finally beaten.
Then I saw the movie. Buzzed with anticipation, expecting the phenomenal, demanding to be blown away,and you might say I had over-hyped it for myself, so was let down....but that wasn't the case. I thought it through..and not just once.
First of all, you've got to realize that it's a movie about a battle between 300 Spartans and the gazillion Persians. So there really isn't much of a story. It's one side against the other, improbable odds...and the rest of the movie is just decoration. It's like the director thought of like 4-5 amazing scenes in his head...like the "This is Sparta" scene...the horses coming over the hill, the "We will fight in the shade" scene...and then tried to fill in the gaps. So there is a serious lack of substance. The cinematography lacks reality, the scenes look terribly fabricated although I would give them full marks for being artistic, it's like a fashion designer and a mythological cartoonist got high together...and decided to make a movie.
So I would say, the aspects that make a war movie truly stunning is it's accurate depiction of reality, it's purpose in it's scenes...and it's sense of humanity. That's where a movie like Gladiator shoots past one like 300. I do understand that the movie doesn't claim to be historically accurate, but really, if they told the story of the Spartans like it was with some terrific direction, you'd have Godfather beaten hollow. The Spartans were far more than just pumped bare-chested men trying to be heroic. Their lives were an excercise in inhuman discipline, unparalleled in our past, present and quite likely, our future. And i really would like to see the reality of that captured!
Finally, I'd just say, when you see the movie...and find yourself going "Wow....awesome!"...think again, for a story that has been remembered over 2500 years, you'd expect something more than a passing eye-catcher.