Homoerotic S&M historical distortions strictly for closeted boys

Rating: 3/10 (12 March 2007)

The apparent goal of Zach Snyder's opulent, CGI enhanced filming of Frank Muller's "graphic novel" (a more respectable term for "extremely expensive short comic book for the pretentious illiterate") was to reintroduce to a new generation the classic tale of a dedicated band of Spartan warrior/lovers who held off the invading hoards from a neighboring great nation at the narrow seaside pass of Thermopylae while the city states of ancient Greece could put aside their historic differences and muster a united front to preserve their collective freedom.
It was a noble idea, and told *honestly*, might have made for an exciting, valuable movie. Most of the "popular history" we learn comes through mass entertainment from Shakesperare's RICHARD III to James Cammeron's TITANIC. All the more reason to get the FACTS right - ESPECIALLY when telling an inherently exciting story like this. RICHARD III is a terrific pot boiler, but grossly misrepresented history (the Tudors almost certainly committed most of the crimes Shakespeare attributed to the "Son of York" they defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field). TITANIC weaves a fictional love story through largely factual background.
Sadly, the new "300" hews far closer to a cinematic version of the history of Shakespeare's travesty without any of Shakespeare's actual linguistic or stylistic skill.
It doesn't matter so much that the Spartans are depicted as steroid puppies tucking their well oiled packages into leather Speedos while their children (we only see two or three - but one of them is supposed to be the King as a child; in the first of many lies and distortions, the film implies that he became king by killing a giant wolf) are burdened with embarrassing diapers rather than the actual nudity and all purpose blanket which were an integral part of the Spartan rearing supposedly being extolled in the early dialogue. The film makers wanted to simultaneously sell tickets to closeted boys and those still in their mental teens and keep their rating to an "R" - nonsexual nudity is apparently a problem for red state parents while graphic blood spattered cartoon violence and gore is not.
It moves beyond the silly "cleaned up" but bloodied comic book visuals and gets offensive when intentional errors and lies are imposed on the film in a cynical appeal to the illiterate right wing (more on the politics of the film in a moment) - like having Spartan leaders denigrate their Athenian neighbors as "boy lovers" (in Sparta it was state policy, with marriage a mere obligation to perpetuate the state! The 300 were literally an army of lovers), the erasure of Spartan slaves from the picture (it wasn't just "the 300" who fought and fell at Thermopylae, but an equal number of their slaves and servants who fell fighting at their sides - what happened to those slaves and servants dying their masters' black Greecian hair RED for battle? - is died hair somehow "gayer" than blue-painted bodies in BRAVEHEART?!) or when a supposedly powerful political opposition within Sparta is painted as rapists and traitors.
This last has little to do with film makers' gay panic or ancient Sparta which was a strict oligarchy with little or no respect for the "democracy" of their other state neighbors and the MOVIE tries to imply is an essential part of their "freedom." What it HAS to do with is pandering to the Bush "presidency" and its foreign policy by trying to identify with the Spartan defenders rather than (as would be more historically accurate) the Persian "superpower" invaders - led ironically by a "Xerxes" who in wimpy pampered visage and command style bears a greater resemblance to our unelected "President" than any of the Spartan heroes. The Persians were - or so they said in the hole filled screenplay by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon - trying to impose peace and prosperity on the area to be conquered and occupied. Sound familiar? Maybe the screenwriters were trying for subversive subtext - but if so, Snyder's freak show of fighting villains and traitors prevent anyone from entertaining a balanced view of (or even catching more than the most fleeting of glances at) the actual history.
Ultimately, while a few closeted teens were standing and applauding at the screening I saw over the not too surprisingly prosperous opening weekend it enjoyed, this homoerotic CGI bonanza is really fit only to be shown (sans sound) over the bar at gay bars or S&M clubs - where it will inevitably turn up once it goes to DVD in the near future - for the sort of success and longevity it deserves. Parents and the educated be warned.