A Magnificent Vision Marred By a Jingoistic Stance

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2010)

"300" had this oniric quality that make that one get the feeling he is dreaming. The outrageous sets, the slow-motion sequences, the music all converge to give this movie an atmosphere I never experienced before on a big screen.
Yeah, I'm all about history but here I really don't care the anachronisms, the aesthetics and historical deformations and the other liberties that were taken. I made my mind up well before I entered the cinema: This is going to be a fantasy movie. And it is.
Alas, some very contemporary elements marred my pleasure, and I felt extreme, if short, displeasure when I saw the Yankee elements on the "war on terror" clumsily patched-on here and there, loudly. It offends me furthermore because it rings false and contrived, furthermore when one knows about history a bit. I just couldn't hide myself off from the sentiment of pathetism I felt each time the Spartans howled Ahh-OOH just like these excellent US Marines do, or when whoever made a speech about "freedom". This is such a pity.
But that, as annoying as it gets, is not enough to make of "300" a bad movie - only one that is going to age faster. Both Butler and Headey's appearance seem to come right off an antique fresca, and I must underline the art that was put in their striking appearances, art that, sadly, did not extend to the rest of the cast.
In spite of the first-degree, time-stamped references to the Bush II dementia reign, there are no films that has done what "300" did - not even "Sin City", who reassembles it only by its faithful adaptation of a comic-book style on the screen and for that I give it a 7/10