Pretentious Claptrap

Rating: Null/10 (24 May 2016)

I downloaded this film to my DVR recently knowing nothing about it except that it was claimed to be an adventure movie centering on the Greek's defeat at the hands of the Persians at the battle of Thermopylae. Or so I thought.
Having grown up on the sword and sandal movies of the 1950s and 1960s I figured it could be an enjoyable 120 minutes or so of entertaining adventure.
As the film unrolled it seemed awfully familiar. Baby born, stands around in snow, fights someone in a courtyard, defeats a beast up in the mountains. Why did I think I had seen this before? Penny drops, so to speak. "Meet the Spartans."
I honestly had no idea at all that "Meet the Spartans" was a send-up, tribute (mockery?) of "300." I had never heard of "300" in any form, movie or comic book, before watching it, though I can see now that it provides ample material for lampooning.
Having seen them both I can now recommend that one stick with "Meet the Spartans." Its humor may be sophomoric, and even that's giving it the benefit of the doubt, but at least it is entertaining and provides some good belly laughs along the way. "300" on the other hand is one of the most pretentious, god-awful pieces of claptrap that I've seen in many years.
The actors look like a combination of escapees from a gay porn video combined with Brooklyn hipsters. The whole slow motion thing gets old very quickly. Some reviews I scanned mentioned people being upset at the "politics" of the film. Unless you're a reincarnated Spartan upset at how your city is portrayed I can't see how "politics" even enters into it. It would be like complaining about the "politics" in an Ed Wood opus (speaking of something else that's more entertaining).
Do yourself a favor and give this a wide berth.