An Epic Must See!

Rating: 10/10 (23 March 2007)

This movie was BRILLIANT!
Being Greek myself I grew up with stories from the ancient world. Some of these historical events or mythological epics have been brought to the silver screen the past few years, but until now they have all fallen short to my expectations. Troy was a nice movie, Alexander, not so bad but by far the best is 300. The movie, being based on a comic book, takes a historical event and fills it with mythological and rather poetic, at times, elements, like the scene at the oracle.
I was particularly happy with the acting; Butler becomes Leonidas. I was also pleased to see that the script lacked cheap American wise cracks and it also included a few phrases from the original story such as "Come and get them" referring to the Spartans' weapons.
The visuals are astonishing and the on and off slow motion scenes really hits the spot by giving impact to the scenes and could be seen as stills from the comic book when they are almost paused. The overall rendering of sepia contrasting with the crimson capes of the Spartans really sets a tone for the movie and the well designed costumes succeed in transferring us to this ancient world of heroes.
A full on epic movie with great music throughout making the spectacular visuals even more dramatic. There is more to it than just great visuals. A must see.
(Empire magazine gave it 3 stars out of five, the same as Ghost Rider. I beg to differ; Ghost Rider was a horrible move!)