you've got to admire a film that gets such power out of such a weak script

Rating: 8/10 (15 July 2009)

The script for this movie is atrocious. There is no doubt about that. This is an ailment which afflicts most 'comic-book' crossovers, and usually stops the movie dead in the water. Here, it doesn't. Why is that? Again, leave aside Scottish Spartans. Personally, I found that quite an ingenious comparison, because of the warlike races. One man's artistic meat is another man's poisonous turkey; but people assume there is one particular way of making films, and build up critical attitudes this way. Anything that violates those attitudes is likely to cause offence simply because a dividing line has been drawn. One's parents' values get passed down through the generations, etc etc etc.
The main virtue of this film is it makes you consider what *you* are doing with life, and whether *you*, in the same circumstances the characters find themselves in, would react any differently. Another virtue is its revitalisation of classical antiquity, but I don't want to dwell on this too much because I suspect the facts as they are understood have been somewhat played with. All the characters get their interesting moments of deliberation and decision - except, perhaps, the kid - and they are all quite intriguing. Would a Spartan woman allow herself to be raped for her country, for instance? It's not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination; by which I mean, it lacks the essential control of all the elements. Script is usually woeful, lighting all dreary darks and rumbling clouds and ethereal lightning, and the subject is not given a wide enough historical overview to be utterly satisfying - but this film as I said before is about the power of its central stories. I know I said most scripts from comic books are woeful; and they are; they encourage retrograde, wooden acting as actors consciously or subconsciously go for the 'freeze frame' look. As I say, though, if you sit back and let the occasional film just be itself, it can hit all the right notes; after all, no one would consider not watching 'The Italian Job' simply because of the inaccuracies and "miscontinuities", would they? Good film. I'd probably watch it again.