I don't get it

Rating: 1/10 (5 October 2007)

Here's my beef with this film: it is just a fantasy movie superimposed on historical events. I don't want to belabor the inaccuracies or the portrayals of real humans as monstrosities but I just don't get it. If the filmmakers wanted to make a fantasy battle epic then do so. They could even loosely base it on real events but at least locate it in some fantastical land. That's why LOTR works and 300 doesn't. No one bothers with whether elves and trolls exist in the former because it is understood to be a fantasy film. The same can't be said about 300 because regardless of the quality of the CGI effects its corruptions of real people and historical shortcomings are ever present. That's also why Sin City works: everything about it is fictional and the viewer expects fiction and fantasy.
Here's a final point - the events surrounding the Battle of Thermopylai were dramatic enough. There's no need to introduce monsters and giants. This was a pivotal point in the development of our political system and had it not been for the suicidal stand taken by some 4,000 hoplites led by the 300 Spartans the rest of the Greeks opposing the Persians would have been unable to prepare themselves and inflict the final defeat at Plataia. The story has already been filmed twice that I know of. It can surely bear retelling making full use of newer techniques.