Hercules for the new millennium.

Rating: 3/10 (23 March 2007)

OK. I get that this is a comic book depiction of a notable moment in military history. But this pseudo-epic is neither comic book nor history. What it appears to be is pro-war, pro-nationalist propaganda of the most American kind, aimed at the young, male and impressionable, at a time when we are debating sending more and more youngsters to the botched war in Iraq. It seemed obviously racist to me. It also seemed obviously homophobic. This is particularly odd since the real 300 were also known as an army of lovers and were trained to fight and die in pairs. It also seemed obviously ethnocentric. I you don't see these elements, I suggest you do some reading other than comic books. Oh, by the way, 'graphic novel' exaggerates this form to a literary level it does not actually satisfy. In my early years, we had Steve Reeves in the Hercules movies. These were dubbed perversions of Greek mythology. It seems one thing to pervert mythology and another to pervert the national history of another country. I don't believe this is a Greek production. Finally, I studied ancient history in great detail during my old-fashioned education. The picture I came away with hardly resembled this Kung Fu, soft-porn epic. I advise those inspired by the film to check out the rich history from which it evolved and morphed. It is far more interesting.