Stylised history

Rating: 9/10 (17 April 2007)

OK, firstly, as a historian I recognized the various inaccuracies in the movie. However since I am also a comic book nerd I was more than willing to move beyond them and see what they did to a great graphic novel which is artistically based on the Battle of Thermopylae. For this to work, they would really have to do something different. And they have. The atmosphere that they have created for this film is nothing short of breathtaking. It's not the actors nor the effects, nor the camera work, nor the soundtrack but all of it coming together to make a feeling that is incredibly involving. 300 is a movie that has done for history what Sin City did for Film Noir. It doesn't take it past a point of no return, but it takes elements of a genre and mixes them with a magic ingredient- Frank Miller's mind.