Blood splatter, freaks, and swords: The Holy Trinity

Rating: 4/10 (9 March 2007)

300 came and went, and all in all, I was definitely satisfied. The hype was enormous, more than any other film so far this year, and though it partially lived up to it, sadly enough, it never exceeded it.
The plot is simple: 300 Spartans, carved from stone, defend their beloved oceanside country from thousands of marauding foreigners, all the while dual corruption by council heads deny the Spartans and their valiant leader any back-up.
Gerard Butler, or perhaps more fitting, Gerard "Cut"ler, owns this film in every ab-clenching, neck-slicing, cliché-touting, excess and aspect this film has to gorgeously cram in your eye cavities, and his 299 counterparts, bronze and brawn from every conceivable angle, holler and follow his march with gusto, brandishing scarlet capes that flow like the blood dripping from their battle spears.
The action is huge, the effects are great, and the acting fitting. Zach Snyder directed the film with some very nice touches, most of them involving wide shots of arrows pouring down from the heavens, and other longer sequences involving Leonidas(Butler) ripping enemies apart with an utmost ease. But a lot of the film seemed to, most likely through complete accident, copy the film that seems to be the end-all for every historical action film to come, GLADIATOR.
A part of the film I didn't care for was the fact that it was filled with war propaganda. Fight for your country, live for glory, and so on. In these current times, it is so easy for this usually righteous sentiment to be taken wrong, and in this movie, it's very easy....Hoo-Rah!
But for all it's downfalls, which aren't many, this film is really fun to watch. It's loaded with great make-up, nice cinematography from start to finish, a heard-it-all-before musical score, and 300 extremely jacked men who aren't going anywhere till every last Persian is dead.
It was great, in a subtle kind of way, but would've benefited most if it wasn't advertised so incessantly. Perhaps, the perfect example of over hype.