Hype strikes again

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2007)

It seems that any film with the correct mix of marketing and media hype can be a great box office success. In truth, congratulations are in order, as a lot of money has been made through a very average film that has been well sold.
Taken in by the hype and seemingly good reviews, I was eager to see what this film had to offer, it also boasts a fairly high average rating.
The film starts in a reasonable manor and the plot begins to develop nicely. At the half way point, I was thinking that this has the potential to be a good film and that was what I was expecting.
However, it is at this point at which we are first introduced to the mongaloid brigade; they are both numerous in quantity and humorous in appearance. Firstly, we see a Quasimodoesque spartan who has been unfortunate enough to develop a tumour of some sort as if he is giving a piggy-back to a walrus. Not happy with hunch-backed hump-backs, we are then introduced to a pig-man that had cunningly been able to morph his hands into samurai swords. However, this character only features in the film at one, seemingly irrelevant point. What were they thinking? - 'Lets give a pig man with machetes for arms a cameo role in this blockbuster.' There were other appearances but I won't go into detail. This, for me, took away all credibility from the film as it made it fairly ridiculous and as I heard one person mutter in the cinema, 'pathetic'.
**Spoilers Ahead**
One of the main aims of the Spartans was to eliminate the Persian leader who fancied himself as a god, however, after watching this film for two hours, he doesn't get killed. What was the point of the whole film then???! It was clear, they were not going to win the whole war there and then or within the span of the film but because they failed to kill this enemy the whole film seems somewhat pointless.
**Spoilers Over**
The film had some good points, there were some good parts of dialogue and the action sequences were very good. However, the latter became very repetitive by the end of the film and the former could be often described as tedious. The special effects were well done which was good but this alone cannot make a film.
Overall, its not an entirely bad film, it has its moments, however, it does not live up to the expectations assumed by the hype and the lacklustre ending and unrealistic nature is very disappointing.