Cheoreograhed Gore in Sepia

Rating: 6/10 (18 March 2007)

300 is a feast for the eyes. All the things that are good about this film is solely to the credit of the technicians who brought the stunning visuals alive on the screen. Rest is just an effort to justify those visuals.
At the outset, we are briefed on how a Spartan is prepared from childhood for a life of combat. For him, the highest glory is to sacrifice himself for the cause of Sparta in a battlefield. King Leonidas is no exception. Not much time is then wasted on building up the premise for an epic battle. Rest of the film is the epic battle itself.
Zack Synder, the director, no doubt has given us a film with visuals like none seen recently. It is a spectacle the holds the audience in thrall till the end. But he, otherwise, is not concerned with injecting any novelty in the storyline. There is the usual rejected soldier who defects to the opposition, the usual pain at the loss of a close one for an important character, the usual politics away from the battlefront, the usual unsung sacrifices of the women - all in all the usual storyline of any battle story. Not to say that these usual helpings are irrelevant, but they are all such an integral of part of any historical battle drama that there is a deja vu throughout.
During the early years of cinema, the film backgrounds were usually just painted out - mountains, trees, skylines. There was no on-the-location filming. The cars would stay still and the background moved, usually a film running on a screen behind. When you look at those old films, all that seem quite funny. Apparently, the audience of those times did not mind it. Films always depend on what the audience intelligence of the times accept. Similarly, the whole of 300 is a computer graphics painted brilliant battle scenery. Our intelligence of the day is awed by it. We cannot guess what will happen ten years from now.
Witnessing the sepia 300, my senses today had a great time. As the Spartan King Leonidas says,'We're in for one wild night'!