It is certainly not high art, but it is great fun

Rating: 7/10 (13 March 2007)

Some possible minor spoilers The film 300 accomplishes precisely what I expected of it: it is visually stunning (perhaps the most beautiful film I have seen), action packed, sexy (for either sex), and filled with one-liners and melodrama that play on the more base emotions. The film is exhilarating and intense, and does not have a single dull moment. It is pure and perfect escapism; the plot and dialog might be simplistic, but it draws you into a world that never really was, when a man could be sure of his place in the world and the purpose of his life and when you could be confident of the righteousness of your cause and the evil of your enemies.
Let's not hold 300 to any misguided expectations, as many reviewers seem to, this film makes no pretension at being historically accurate. 300 is much closer to fantasy than a documentary, and its bias is clear from the start: the Spartans are "good" and the Persians are "evil." The film's Xerxes is completely different (in just about every possible way) from the historical figure, but again: this is NOT a historical film. The only part of 300 that really bothered me was the continuous invocation of the American meta-narrative of an outmatched team fighting a tyrant for the sake of freedom; the battle between Sparta and Persia had nothing to do with this, and Sparta was most certainly not free.
For all of those who have complained that the film is not intellectually stimulating, I have to ask, "was there anything in its trailer that suggested it would be?" If you want to be intellectually stimulated or learn about the actual historical battle of Thermopylaes, pick up a book; there are plenty of good ones out there. Or if you are like me and can't help but think rationally during a movie, here is a suggestion: the film 300 glorifies a culture that worships warfare and rejects mercy, while all the while pursuing excellence in its craft. Instead of simply rejecting their culture out of hand for differing from our own and ignoring our present notion of "human rights", you ask yourself why what they do (in any given situation that you have a visceral reaction to, such as one Leonidas eats an apple as his soldiers kill the wounded) is wrong; and all the while ask yourself what we can learn from them.