Very Good, If Only With a Few Flaws...

Rating: 6/10 (29 August 2008)

The only real gripe I could have with 300 is that there's just way too much slow-motion. The film's time could've been reduced 20-minutes for all the slow-mo there is. A couple other things that I didn't like was probably the distorted people in Xerxes's tent, and the poorly stylized vision Snyder had for flying blood.
The acting here is pretty good. Gerard Butler plays a very brutal king, David Wenham is a convincing soldier -- though his character is hardly seen in the film, and his affiliation with the king isn't touched upon, or at least not from what I saw. Rodrigo Santoro is okay as Xerxes. The morphing of the voice is kind of hokey, though in this barbaric film it kind of works and adds to the atmosphere.
The battles aren't very impressive. The first encounter with the Persian army is nicely choreographed, probably THE best battle in the entirety of the movie. The rest are montage sequences of brutal slaying, some of which seem more interesting than the prolonged battles seen elsewhere on here.
This is a beautiful film in terms of the palette Snyder envisioned -- mainly crimson and gold. It really does look like the graphic novel.
The writing and directing, while mediocre at times, is actually very good. Snyder's take on the council meetings are kind of confusing, since they weren't in the graphic novel. Though Queen Gorgo seems like a fierce woman, her character is hardly one we'd feel compassion for.
The music by Tyler Bates is pretty disappointing. It's very similar to the score for Titus, in fact, a lot of the music seems like a complete rip-off, which kind of takes this film down from 7-stars to the 6 I have listed above.
Overall, while visually arresting, 300 is very good, if only with a few flaws. Snyder's vision is creative and an attempt worthy of some applause. It's not "big" enough to be called an epic film, but is it emotional enough to tug at your heartstrings at the final 12-minutes of the movie. 300 is a film well worth a watch.