Like being shot in the knee, painful but can't stop thinking about it... (Part 1)

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2008)

I dislike this film so much my review is in two halves...
My first knowledge of 300 was actually seeing a tiny preview of it on a Saturday morning news show. The two clips of it that I saw made me think this was going to be one of the best viewing experiences of my life. I could hardly have been more wrong. Throughout most of 300, while I was watching it, I was reasonably enjoying myself, although I was never impressed. But even then, things that were bad about the film were occurring to me. It was only as I was leaving the cinema that I realised what a horrible experience I had just been put through. As time has gone by, this annoying movie that seems to have taken over my life has gotten worse and worse.
What's bad about the film: The film thoroughly overuses its slow motion technique, using it at virtually any opportunity. The scene that has claimed international knowledge, the 'this is Sparta' scene, is the third time in the film that the technique is used. The other two being for utterly pointless utilisations. The entire film is CGI except for the actors. On the whole this feels lazy more than anything else. One could describe the images shown as being breathtaking, but there's nothing that man can do, that God (and/or Ridley Scott) can't do better. Enormous computer-generated charging Persians are no replacement for real earth-shaking, war-crying Zulus (that's a reference to the everything-done-for-real epic 'Zulu'). The acting is very unenergetic, with the exception of Leonidas and Xerces, and their energy is rather misdirected. The battle sequences are little short of appalling. Their problem is that never for a minute do we believe that Leonidas and the Spartans are going to die. In the best epics, e.g. Lord of the Rings and Zulu, we believe there is no way that our heroes are going to survive, even though to kill them would be going against the laws of fiction.
One of the few things the film does well is to bring a fascinating mix of 'Warhammer'-style villains, e.g. fifty foot tall elephants, masked double-sword-wielding immortals, sun-blotting-out archers, and a strange naked giant with butcher's blades for arms. All this backfires spectacularly, in that none of these villains last more than five seconds up against the seemingly invincible Spartans. We don't even get to see the butcher's blade arms guy fight. The truth is, even though its current 8.0 rating on this site would say otherwise, this is really just very disappointing. Everyone prefers villains to heroes, e.g. Captain Hook over Peter Pan, Darth Vader over Luke Skywalker, the Joker over Batman. Invincible heroes are an utter bore. The Spartans only take one casualty in the film (excluding the fact that they all die at the end, but there are limits to how much Hollywood is allowed to change history; having them win would be like doing the version of Titanic, where the Titanic doesn't sink). When said Spartan dies, a good looking extra of no importance, the film plays it as the greatest shock in the history of the world.
After a short while, the film starts to develop a rhythm, a short battle with the Persians involving some super cool villain who is apparently extremely vincible (as opposed to invincible!) Cut to the boring sub-plot with Queen Gorgo, something to do with treachery. This sub-plot is neither historical or in Frank Miller's novel, a book which I have read since seeing this atrocity and now hold in the highest esteem. This sub-plot has the feeling of being added in, so that the film can actually be the length of a feature (the graphic novel is only 88 pages, and that's short even for a graphic novel). Then King Leonidas gives another rousing freedom speech (was the script written by Terry Goodkind or something??) and then another uninteresting battle commences. The 'amazing effects' produce a whole load of 'amazing images' (many of which are stolen from Frank Miller's novel, yes I mean stolen) which I found more distracting than interesting. Some film-makers know how to blend image and story, Zack obviously doesn't.
There's also a very boring narrator throughout the entire film, who refuses to shut up about how great the Spartans were, how evil the Persians were, and more times than I can count you have him saying 'and then next the Persians sent in...', 'and then next the Persians sent in...', 'and then next the Persians sent in...' etc. First prize for the world's most over-narrated movie.
Lastly, the film's climax drags on forever. History tells us that the Spartans kept on fighting until every one of them had been slain. At the end of the film, they just stand there and take it, 'it' being a wave of Persian arrows. This plays into the annoying idea that the Spartans are completely invincible, they'll only die on the battlefield if they want to. The film-makers play their death as being some kind of strange statement, probably about 'freeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom'. The real 300 must be spinning in their graves (although obviously being Greek, they wouldn't have had graves but would have been cremated). It is possibly the most disappointing climax in history.
To be continued...