Amazing action/adventure tale!

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2007)

Thre is a point early in the film when a Persian messenger comes to demand the Spartan King's surrender and Queen Gorgo offers her opinion on the situation. The messenger does his best to ignore her, and instead looks at the Spartan King and asks "Why does this woman think she can speak amongst men?" Queen Gorgo, before her beloved husband can answer, says "Because only Spartan women give birth to real men." At this point, you realize that this film has some good dialog, and some very capable acting taking place. Granted, this is not the Battle of Thermopylae as it happened; this is not the Battle of Thermopylae as it was told by Dilios, the Spartan orator that told the tale after the fact to inspire his countrymen into action; this is not even the Battle of Thermopylae as Hollywood would derive it from Dilios' work.
This is an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel, which was an adaptation of the earlier Hollywood effort (The 300 Spartans), which was an adaptation of Dilios. This means, if you are familiar with Frank Miller (the Dark Knight series, for example), that you know that you are in for a hell of a ride. The visuals are done to be int eh same style as Frank Miller's artwork. The story is an ancient one, but with a distinct, unique, and very cutting-edge style. the writing is excellent (and by that, I mean that the dialog feels natural and smooth; the actions taken by the characters do not jar against the circumstances; nothing appears out of place). It really is about as good as action/adventure has ever been.
Is the film perfect? No. It has its flaws, but they are small, easily ignorable (or even missed!) If you go to this and do not enjoy yourself -- then I am not sure what sort of action/adventure film could appeal to you.