A work of art? Come on, really?

Rating: 4/10 (30 November 2008)

As aforementioned by other reviewers,there is quite a polarisation between the responses of viewers, taking the two sides of either loving 300 or despising it. Unfortunately I am of the latter breed, however, irrespective of this, i must protest against those who advocate this as a piece of art. Granted, the fight scenes are epic, and the cinematography is unique if nothing else, producing a film of high aesthetic quality. However these elements alone can hardly qualify a modern film as being a piece of art.
For a start, the film bases its story around historical events, with one slight problem; in parts it is historically inaccurate. In reading the review of another, they themselves (a lover of 300) admitted this point, and stated that 'this shouldn't matter and that people are reading too much into it' if they pick on the inaccuracies. To take this line is simply ridiculous; if you are going to tell a story of history, you must do it accurately to the best of your ability. Whilst the nature of history itself does come down to the manner in which it is told, this film blatantly ignores historical fact. One major point that jumps out at me occurs early on in the film, where an ultimatum is given to the Spartans, and the Spartan King asserts that his queen has the right to speak amongst men, asserting that women have a level of equality to men in this society. This is a poor choice by the creators, where it is obvious that they are merely trying to insert modern values into a historical context, and i would argue that this lowers the quality of the film.
Whilst in principle this idea is not 'wrong', the problem is that the creators are trying to tell a historical story, and to do it right, they need to stick to the facts. Such an inclusion would be welcome in something of a pseudo-historical film with a post-modernist or deconstructualist flair, however 300 has no such element, and so points such as this come across as nothing more than anachronisms inserted simply to keep the female audience from being offended.
Furthermore the glorification of the Spartan King killing the messenger is another poor choice. Sure, he insulted the queen, but even as far back as this is set, there was a customary understanding that one does not 'shoot the messenger'. It also undermines part of the storyline, for the Persian king would not be informed of the Spartan King's response - the Persian king is left to assume, however he could just as easily assume that the messenger was killed by some wild beast along the way.
Another point that strikes me is the characters themselves. One reviewer mentioned the high quality of acting from the actors... are you serious? The acting is nothing spectacular, and to be honest, it appears that the creators of this film just grabbed any guy with a six-pack out of Hollywood and stripped them to their underwear. The lines of this movie are nothing but corny, and the blatant use of stereotypical characterisation demeans the responder to a position where the creator assumes they have no intelligence, simply telling them who to support and who to despise. An example of this can be seen when comparing the leader of the Persians to the leader of the Spartans. The leader of the Persiens is very feminine in his appearance, with the use of eyeliner and makeup to accentuate his rather delicate features. This combined with his wearing of excessive amounts of jewelery presents to the responder something of a woman masquerading as a man. The responder is then led to compare this to King Leonidis, leader of the Spartans, who is your stereotypical rough and tumble man-hero, with six-pack and bulging biceps, and no fear whatsoever. In juxtaposing these two characters, it is clear who the creators push the responder toward supporting. This is further seen in the nature of the Persian leader, who shows excessive pride in yearning to be seen as a 'god'; an ugly personal trait to any responder. The point I am making here is that a true work of art would implore the responder to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions - the historical legend is one of heroism, and so the responder could easily come to this conclusion upon their own accord, they do not need to be treated like idiots as this film does. To a great extent, this is probably why there there is such a spectrum of responses upon the film, because some people enjoy being told, but most prefer to think. The problem is the film does not entirely know what it wants, it either needs to be something of modern pop-culture, quickly and easily forgotten, or a work of art. The stereotypical characterisation leads the film toward being part of pop culture, however the impressive cinematography provides high aesthetic appeal worthy of some artistic commendation. With this being said however, for a film to be considered 'a work of art', it needs to be succinct and bring all of these elements together into one production, which unfortunately, 300 is not capable of. It sits on the fence, showing elements of both strength and weakness, and for this reason, a 'work of art' it simply is not.