Hits the "Target Audience" like a spartan javelin

Rating: 5/10 (15 March 2007)

High on drama, grotesquery and violence. This is a fantastically accurate rendition of The graphic novel on which it is based and not only, does the images and lighting of Miller justice but has a fair stab at Varleys much unsung colouring as well.
As such it will appeal to the spotty herberts, angst ridden teens and a few plump gothy girls that read this kind of material but I don't expect it to bring the importance to western democracy of the sacrifice made by the thousand or so Greek citizens and slaves and in particular the 300 spartan royal guardsmen that stuck it out to the death, to a much wider audience.
This is a shame because if this doesn't do well financially it will (after the debacle that was Troy) put another nail in the coffin of the ancient historical movie which is unjustified. It's just that they're not being done very well. My daughter sat with me to watch Spartacus the other day and was absolutely wrapped up in it, shouting and crying at all the places I did 20 years before her. 300 probably means that "Gates of Fire" will never get made and even that if it did follow the novel will focus on blood and guts rather than the important elements of the story The willingness of people we think of as less civilised than us to show far greater nobility and humanity when the going got tough