Great flick! So the history's off... so what?

Rating: 9/10 (11 March 2007)

As a military history buff, I went into "300" prepared to be disgusted by a movie as grossly anachronistic as "A Knight's Tale." I was wrong. Don't mistake me, this movie is a comic-book movie, not a historical drama, but I could easily imagine the real Spartans thinking and acting as did the Spartans in this movie. The real Spartans were a strange bunch. They were a harsh warrior culture coupled with a latent sense of ancient Greek enlightenment, and the movie did a good job of portraying this dichotomy. OK, so maybe they concentrated on the warrior culture part, but like I said, this is a comic-book movie. And those battle scenes were absolutely beautiful in a gory, flesh rending way. So, if you remember that this is in fact a moving graphic novel that has just enough historical heart not to offend terribly, you might enjoy it as much as I did.