Visually Impressive But Tedious And Uninteresting Account Of Ancient Greek Tough Guys

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2007)

In ancient times, King Leonidas of the Greek region of Sparta takes a small cadre of men to defend a narrow pass against a vast enemy force. Defying the Gods, his Council and the odds, what fate and glory will become of them ?
As a historical epic, this movie doesn't work very well; it doesn't really explain why the Spartan force was so small, it grossly oversimplifies Sparta's role (there were at least eight other Greek city-states represented), and takes a lot of liberties with a realistic depiction of the battle. As a character drama, it doesn't work either; all the heroes are macho clods with paint-by-numbers personalities and the villains are debauched weakling fools with nothing to say (although gold-encrusted, eight-foot-tall, androgynously campy Xerxes is at least some fun). As an adaptation of the comic-book series by Frank Miller and Lynne Varley however, it fares a bit better; the CGI backdrops, the lovingly severed limbs and heads and the various bestial mutations give it an interesting look, although for me the complete absence of any location photography is a big turn-off in a sword-and-sandal epic. The big downer though is the look-at-me direction, which is dismal. Synder overuses lots of clever and intricate techniques but fails to understand that narrative, exposition, character and atmosphere drive a picture; if we don't care about the people and can't relate to them we don't feel anything. He just copies other movies (Braveheart, Gladiator) and other directors (Sam Peckinpah, George Miller, Peter Jackson) without realising that they built the style of their films on a solid foundation. He uses slow-motion so much (I lost count after about two-hundred shots) that it has no meaning, no effect. He should look at something like Shichinin No Samurai, where the director reserves the use of slow-motion for one moment (Kyuzo's initial duel) and the effect is simply stunning. There are some other problems - accents range from Butler's Glaswegian to Wenham's Aussie to the standard Posh British, and the stupid they-won-later-really ending kills the pathos of the story - but maybe I'm being unfairly harsh. The score by the prolific Tyler Bates is good, as are the endless effects, and there's enough bare-chested bloodletting to keep it going. But the bottom line is this is MTV movie-making - unoriginal, overblown and vacuous, with sixteen producers and no soul. If you want a choice, the 1962 Rudolph Maté film of this story - whilst hardly Citizen Kane itself - is a much better picture.