No epic film but uncompromising fighting!

Rating: 7/10 (16 February 2007)

I saw the movie at the Berlinale Film Festival! I was very eager to see it, as I loved Sin City (the movie), loved the trailer (of course the one with Nine Inch Nails's song as soundtrack!), and was pretty impressed by the epic graphic novel. But could the movie really be as fast, strong and straightforward as expected?
With regard to Troy or Gladiator, I would actually just compare the fighting scenes. They are absolutely gripping! The dynamic between slow motion, angle change and frame-dropping is amazing! Most of the blood seemed to be CGI, but that fits in perfectly with all the other CGI. For example, all the background images should be CGI as well, since the same technique (or at least a very similar one) was used as for Sin City. But whereas Sin City was very dark and almost had no need for any background at all, it is crucial for 300!
Unfortunately, I can't really say if 300's backgrounds are too comicesque flat or if it is too obvious, that because of the technique the sets couldn't be as huge and realistic as in Troy or Gladiator; perhaps it could also be the lack of different 'sets' or just the adapted story itself... but somehow, I wouldn't call 300 an epic film. An epic film should be of breadth, depth, change and straight narration, in both visually and literary.
Also, as far as I noticed, the movie, in contradistinction to the trailer, contains no songs from Nine Inch Nails. However, the soundtrack wasn't too conventional, too, but a love theme is something you probably wouldn't think of too much after reading the graphic novel. Well, Leonidas in the movie is definitely not quite as self-righteous as he is in the novel.
To sum it up: The pace is rather stumbling, not really smooth nor fast as it seemed in the trailer, and the script is not as straightforward nor stubborn as the original novel... but at least, 300 definitely contains strong, uncompromising fighting scenes!