The 300 Blows!

Rating: 5/10 (21 July 2008)

I won't start out this review by borrowing one of the terrible one-liners from 300, a film based upon the graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller. The film depicts the courageous efforts of King Leonidas and his 300 men at the Battle of Thermopylae as they attempt to halt the immense armies of the Persians. Sounds pretty good on paper and knowing it was based on Frank Miller's novel, I came in excited. I came out of the theater greatly disappointed and slightly angry. The film is of course, historically speaking, fairly inaccurate but it wasn't something I really minded. I did mind the multitude of corny and cheesy sequences and the horrible acting from Gerald Butler as King Leonidas. But the complaints just start there.
The film centers upon the events leading up to Battle of Thermopylae and the eventual stand-off itself. The battle sequences are actually well choreographed and highly stylized. The battles are rough and gritty, with some interesting slowdowns and speedups, and they add a little bit more to the otherwise bland, stale and predictable characters. The story is predictable and otherwise nonexistent when most of the time is spent with the Spartans yelling war cries. There are some plot holes that were particularly annoying and made it feel as if the writers had just gotten lazy or something. It didn't do justice to the novel. Moreover, I felt as if the film had been geared to a younger audience, with all of its blood and sophomoric speeches and grunts. Some of the scenes were honestly just painstaking to watch but the filmmakers obviously felt that a younger crowd might like that a little more.
The acting is just plain terrible. Prior to seeing the film, I was content that the cast was made up of relatively unknown actors. Well I wish that these guys would have learned to act as much as they learned to get buff. The characters created by the writers are already so dimwitted and indistinctive from one another; coupled with the acting, the film again suffers heavily. The score is forgettable and if anything, makes the battle sequences slightly better. The film, with its ghastly story and acting, offers little in substance and really ends up only having its artistic style to its name.
The film was undoubtedly geared toward a younger audience and consequently dumbed down. I wish they wouldn't have done that. The film could have still had its great aesthetic, graphic design without being cheesy and boring. The story, whatever there was of it, was boring and incoherent. The writers made the characters yelling and bumbling idiots, and the actors didn't do anything to improve them. This film could have been so much more, so much better. I am severely disappointed that such a great concept was handled so wrongfully and with no presumable intelligence. But as the French would say, Les Trent Cent Coups!