Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (12 September 2014)

Sure, the special effects are spectacular. In the sense that they add up to a spectacle. (As in, Stop making a spectacle of yourself.) But is that what I really want when I watch a movie? The graphic equivalent of purple prose? Xerxes looks like the Big Bad in a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" arc. I kept expecting fangs.
What really got me was the scene where the Persian emissary meets with King Leonidas and demands, "Surrender your weapons". This is a rightly famous moment in Western history, although, given the Spartans' warrior ethos, Leonidas' reply was a foregone conclusion. ("Spartan" is Greek for "Klingon".) All Leonidas said was two words: "Come take". A phrase so laconic it has ever since frightened translators who usually insist on adding words to what he said. What "300" does is worse than add words, however; it adds images, narrative. It stretches out the scene unnecessarily. Cinematically, Leonidas basically says, I will answer your question, but first I must have a flashback. Then I must overdramatize my reply instead of making it understated, which is all that is needed.
This movie lost me right there.