Visually dazzling but very shallow

Rating: 5/10 (28 March 2007)

You get the impression that, were they able to take time from their busy schedule of brutal training and massive slaughter, the Spartans would enjoy Frank Miller's vision of their most legendary moment, the last stand of 300 Spartan warriors against the vast Persian army at Thermopylae. Cinema going audiences were introduced to Miller's world view in the phenomenally successful if insubstantial Sin City and little has changed here despite the dramatic change of scenery from dark shadowy Basin City to the bright cornfields of ancient Sparta. In fact, the classical world setting allows for an even more extreme version of Miller's preoccupations, tough, physical, brutal men, beautiful women and loathsome, deformed, depraved and ugly villains. This certainly tallies with the philosophy of a proto-fascist people who prized strength and physical prowess above all else exposed and abandoned any child to display the slightest deformity and trained their children in the ways of violent combat from a young age. Director Zack Snyder, already hard at work appeasing the fanboys for his next adaptation of a beloved comic book property, Alan Moore's Watchmen, stays very close to the source material, not just Miller's graphic novel but also the histories of Herodotus, the original chronicler of the Battle of Thermopylae and Miller's major source. Of course, Herodotus makes little mention of the Spartans fighting in leather codpieces rather than armour (a curious decision on the part of the filmmakers which just looks ridiculous in places), or the Persians bringing giants, war rhinos and goat headed minstrels, but these are mere trappings, the storyline of the course of the battle, the tactics, each wave of assault and the Spartans betrayal, all draw directly on historical sources. Indeed, even the dialogue quotes the mythic speech given in early histories to the Spartans such as the famous comeback to the Persian threat to blot out the sun with their arrows, "then we will fight in the shade" and the Spartans final epitaph". In their desire to tell their story of Spartan heroics, however, Miller and Snyder do sideline the role played by other Greek states at Thermopylae and the Persian Wars as a whole, reducing them to a group of unskilled and cowardly Arcadians. The lack of an accurate portrayal of various Greek states is pretty irrelevant in itself but it does highlight a wider issue, namely whether we really need Miller's authentically Spartan version of this story. The Spartan philosophy is perhaps a little simple and superficial to make an interesting and complex film. Sparta is a soldier state and it is difficult to relate to their code of honour in which they must return from battle with their shield or on it, such a desire for war and honour scuppered the earlier Troy as modern audiences struggled to grasp these ancient motivations. While the Persian enemies are faceless villains, literally in the case of the masked ninja style Immortals, the Spartan soldiers fare little better. The 300, a group of hardass Scots for the most part, are two dimensional clichés (the ageing captain who has seen many years of service with his king and friend, and the captain's eager, callow young son being obvious examples) devoid of any emotional arc, in fact it is often difficult to discern much emotion at all in them. Gerard Butler as Leonidas, the Spartans' pointy bearded King, at least gets a little more opportunity for moments of complexity, such as in his relationship with his wife Lena Headey, the film's most deep character and one developed greatly from Miller's original, but spends much of the film shouting in his curious accent, his natural Scottish slipping through quite often. The script is appallingly clunky in places, curiously mixing the grandstanding posturing of classical heroes with the laddish banter of modern war films. As is often the case with comic book dialogue, the actors sometimes struggle to say it with any realism and conviction, Dominic West as the Spartan senator in league with the Persians being particularly poor. Fortunately, Snyder's directing is considerably better than his writing and 300's visual style creates a unique and beautiful epic (despite a slight excess of sub-Gladiator scenes of golden cornfields). Like it's predecessor Sin City, 300 uses real actors in front of computer generated backdrops to recreate the style of the graphic novel and any shot of the film could be a brilliantly realised rendition of a frame of graphic novel or even a painting. For once, the dumb audience in an action movie cliché of wanting to cut through the boring talky bits to get straight to the blood and violence is true here as when people are not talking this film really takes off. Moments like the wreck of the Persian fleet in a storm or the Spartans in their crimson cloaks rolling the Immortals off their shields and hacking them down or athletically throwing their spears are stunning looking. Some of the violence including decapitations and the removal of legs is very impressive. Meanwhile, the first assault as the Persians crash against the shields of the Spartan phalanx is as exciting and visceral a realisation of the loud, violent confusion of classical warfare as in any epic. However, these moments are too few and far between and the superficiality of the film is too apparent when the excitement of battle is not going on around the uninteresting characters. It would be possible to greatly enjoy the film in a beer fuelled testosterone heavy group of other men and certainly fans of Sin City and Miller's work in general will love it, but 300 is a silly and shallow film whose exciting visuals don't make up for its many faults. Yes, Spartans may love this film but many 21st century viewers may be left a little cold and possibly even bored.