Stylish comic book film.

Rating: 7/10 (8 July 2010)

300 is set in Greece during 480 B.C. where a Persian messenger arrives at the Kingdom of Sparta where King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) is told to submit & surrender to the self proclaimed God King of Persia named Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) who wants to rule the entire world, Leonidas refuses & kills the messenger which is considered an act of war by Xerxes. King Leonidas seeks help from the diseased Oracle's the Ephor's who refuse the going to war against Xerxes & his Persian army. Leonidas selects 300 of his best fighting Spartans to fight Xerxes & his army of one million soldiers, Leonidas sets up position in a narrow pass named The Hot Gates where Leonidas hops the great number of Xerxes army will count for nothing. Wave after wave of Persion onslaught only makes Leonidas & his men more determined & thousands of Persians are slaughtered...
Co-written & directed by Zack Snyder this fantasy film was based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller & his then wife Lynn Varley first published back in 1998, 300 is actually based on the real historical event of the Battle of Thermopylae although there's little historic accuracy here & I would call 300 more of a fictional fantasy epic such as The Lord of the Rings rather than an historically accurate piece like Gladiator (2000). As a purely fantastical action adventure then 300 is fine entertainment in it's own right, it hits all the right notes if your looking for a lads film from muscular heroes to sword fights to standing up to overwhelming odds to lots of bloody battles & monsters & special effects with a fairly simple plot to tie everything together. Again the politics of the time is presented all wrong, it's accepted that Persian society was more free than the Greek equivalent & of course everyone speaks in English & go bare chested rather than wear armour but as I said just think of 300 as pure fantasy & you will be OK. At just under two hours the pace is good, there's plenty of battle scenes & some very striking imagery, the plot is alright & the basic theme of self sacrifice runs through the film although I must admit I didn't really care for any of the character's when certain ones died I felt nothing. The dialogue is simple yet effective with large portions of the story narrated which cuts down on exposition I suppose, I would say that 300 is a film you will remember for the fights & it's visual style rather than it's strong character's & plot though.
Almost every shot of 300 was filmed against a blue or green screen & things like backgrounds, lighting, effects & other actor's were digitally created later, the only actually shot not filmed this was was when the Persian messenger rides over the hill but even then the shot was dramatically altered. All the colour levels have been significantly altered & while it looks stylish some of the time I found it looked a bit drab & boring at other's, there's plenty of nice visuals on show from flowing capes to exotic dances to huge armoured Elephants to a wall of human bodies to form a barricade to the Sun being blocked out by thousands of arrows shot into the air & it's a shame the colour scheme is unappealing. The fighting style is basically what looks cool on film rather than being historically accurate, the battles are cool & there's plenty of them from slow-motion to long sweeping shots that follow Leonidas & thankfully there's no machine gun editing or shaky camcorder crap going on. The gore is restrained, there's various blood spurts, a couple of cool slow motion decapitation's & a few severed limbs but I expected a little more I have to be honest.
With a supposed budget of about $65,000,000 it looks it with plenty of action & effects. Filmed at the Icestorm Studios in Québec, Canada. The acting is solid although there's no household names apart from Gerard Butler.
300 is really just a lads film with big blokes fighting each other in hand to hand combat, there's action, monsters & a decent enough story to hang it all on. I liked it & would watch it again & recommend it but I didn't like the bleached look at all & don't go into 300 expecting any historical accuracy as you won't find any.