Big disappointment, bad special effects

Rating: 3/10 (22 March 2007)

The only redeeming thing about this movie is that the battle scenes are pretty cool and fun to watch. But pretty much all scenes away from the battle are laughably maudlin, self-important, and full of annoying pathos. And they drag on FOREVER. Too many furrowed brows, pregnant pauses, meaningful looks and bad speeches, all badly acted on top of that. Queen Gorgo's speech in front of the council sounded like a bad valedictorian address. I kept looking at my watch and checking how much longer until the damn movie was over.
Very, very poor acting overall. King Leonidas was OK, but others just couldn't act their way out of a paper bag. I guess that's what happens when you hire a bunch of bodybuilders to act in a movie. All the characters are very one-dimensional, no character development at all, everyone is an overacted caricature.
The dialog sucked, too, and by the second hour of the movie I was ready to shoot the damn narrator.
I guess many people say that the movie is stunning visually, but I think that art direction, styling, makeup, and visual effect really, really sucked. The colors are nice, but overall the movie stinks of cheapness and fakeness. I like the graphic novel look (I loved Sin City), but here it's just done badly:

Special effects are awful. The big bad wolf at the beginning of the movie looks ridiculously fake, like something out of a crappy video game.

The blood spatter that's all over the place in battles looks fake and, what's worse, completely computer-generated.

The Spartans' body makeup looks fake and cheaply done. They all look like they're wearing airbrushed latex suits.

The lighting is horrible. It's painfully obvious that all the scenes were shot in a studio in front of a green screen. It all looks fake.

All the scenery looks fake.

All the Persian soldiers and monsters are completely ridiculous, and everything is presented very black-and-white: here are the good guys, here are the bad guys. No subtlety, nothing interesting. And really, really bad styling. The Persian army looks more like a Halloween parade than an army.

All the armor and weapons look cheap and plasticky. Especially the face masks of the Immortals - I think they sell those at Walgreens for $1.95.

Overall, I think that the idea for this movie - the battle of Thermopylae based on a comic book - is awesome. But it all failed horribly in the execution. Bad acting, bad art directing, bad script, horrible dialog, and everything looks cheap and fake. The story of this battle is absolutely amazing and exciting, and I certainly didn't expect to be bored in a movie about it, but I was. Huuuuuge disappointment.