A tedious bore

Rating: 4/10 (19 March 2007)

What's this movie about? Who the hell knows. Various critics have accused director Zack Snyder of producing a fascist tract or a glorification of the destructive policies of the Bush administration, but I think more than anything its a paean to CGI. The film is a tedious two hours and feels like a demonstration piece to help move home entertainment centers at Best Buy. It's devoid of emotion or drama and hopes to win audiences over solely through the steady bombardment of hyper-stylized bloodletting.
The film fails fundamentally by not creating a world we believe in. Snyder has tried to bring painterly comic book presentation to screen, a la "Sin City", and in this he succeeds. This movie world looks crisp, sharp, and perfectly composed. And lifeless. The hordes of CGI soldiers, meant to evoke fear in their might and number, don't emerge as real but merely as computer-generated hordes. The world looks artificial as do many of the soldiers. There's nothing at stake because we don't believe in the film's reality.
As in last Spring's big budget comic adaptation "V for Vendetta", the heroes of this tale, the 300 brave Spartans, are nearly invincible. These guys are mighty and as a whole nearly untouchable, and don't display any vulnerability until the script needs them to. There's no oomph to the battles because the 300 are so supernaturally mighty. They crush everyone in balletic slo-mo. Yawn. The story's brief moments of political turmoil away from the battlefield are predictable and seem culled from a different film.
If the film is guilty of any sin, it would be in trying to sell warfare as awesome and the enemy as relatively faceless and soulless. Hopefully the movie's presentation is so fantastic and ridiculous as to not sell anyone on the cruel, bloodthirsty code of the Spartans.
"300" is a bore and tedious. In IMAX, as I saw it, it's flaws were glaringly apparent.