300 is Zack Snyder's Valentine to Violence!

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 2015)

Once in a while, a movie comes along that's so extraordinarily butch, it makes even the most pumped-up gym-jockeys look like spaghetti-armed girls. Zack Snyder's 300 is just that! It is an absolute beast of a film, glistening with sweat and other homo-erotic juices, almost drowning in a sea of testosterone.
300 tells the story of 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) into the face of an insurmountable invasion at the hands of a million-man Persian army. The Spartans are proud and pure people, who raise their young on the battlefield to ensure their men grow into strong warriors to protect their land. When demi-god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) makes clear his intentions to raze Sparta to the ground, King Leonidas decides that rather than allow his nation to be conquered into slavery, he must take his best warriors, the Spartan elite, and do what he can to fend off the impending invasion. Picking up on that incensed energy, he leads just 300 of his finest warriors to meet the million soldiers of the Persian army in a fierce battle for survival.
From there the film explodes into a highly stylized, intense battle-royale in which the Spartans (all sporting six packs you could bounce a brick off), with their flare for battle and their constant arrogance, take on the vast Persian army led by Xerxes. The battle scenes themselves are something to behold, they are pulse pounding and intense yet not chaotic. Everything is slightly hyper-real, so expect jets of crimson to soak the screen, ninja-style leaps, giant ogres with axes and crazed war rhinos taking chunks out of each other in battle. It's all wonderfully OTT, but as the encroaching armies are gradually worn down and start to lose their heads, it's a deliciously macabre spectacle. In the hands of director Zack Snyder, 300 is a hurricane blast of epic energy - two solid hours of big, beefy men stabbing each other and yelling "Raaargh!" as loud as they can. He brilliantly recreates Frank Miller's source material, shooting it with a visual flair in a palette so stylized that it might as well be animation. The glorification of the body, the de-humanized enemy, the sheer relentless carnage presented as poetry and ballet - 300 is almost fascistic in its devotion to war and heroism.
Of the cast, it is Gerard Butler who clearly steals the show from the rest. He does more than just shout to his men prior to an impending surge - he is charismatic, irreverent and ultimately embodies the vision of a Spartan warrior. Resplendent in his scarlet robe and six-pack, Butler's warrior king brings both a sense of humor and a brooding intelligence to the slaughter.
300 is a valentine to violence, hilariously macho and eye-poppingly homo-erotic. Grab your Spartan helmet, sword and shield, it is time to kick some ass!