Has the most misleading commercial reviews for a film to date

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2007)

Looking at this film from a purely objective standpoint, the visuals do give the film some brownie points, and there is some good use of fast to slow motion in the battle scenes–which themselves are often exciting. However....
There is very little thought or heart behind the visuals, that is, what is happening just on the surface. Maybe this is deliberately so (after all it is based on a comic); but regardless of the filmmakers' intentions, all kinds of other messages can be communicated to the viewer. Something that was communicated to me was that there seemed to be an attempt to, unsuccessfully, recapture some kind of moribund, ultramacho attitude where films years ago could do that effortlessly--ya know, in a past where those attitudes might have been more functional in some way but are now better left shed. The movie reeks of irrelevancy (and no, I don't count regressive movements and attitudes as relevant even if they do currently partially exist). There's seriously something bugging out in today's young men: looking up to a bunch of belligerent Spartan Greek military cogs for idols of manhood? If many young men are going for this kind of thing, it only reveals just how lost they are. Think of it: boys and men are flocking to see a movie that features well built, chiseled, and hard muscular bodies (used for sexual titillation probably more for hard up female viewers but also for the latent homosexual fantasies of many men), and combines that with all kinds of violence inflicted upon the male body in a war milieu being directed to an audience sitting in (or sleeping through?)a time when such large scale warfare can lead to the extinction of the human species among many other species. Wake up!You're seeing a film where male bodies are being used not only as meat bags to be cut and broken in so many ways, but also as sex objects. So do you see the type of conflicts that are pertinent to the here and now? Any negative depictions of women in the film (for instance, the girl used in the oracle process on the mountain) are meant to be criticized or seen in a negative light (except maybe the cheap thrill of brief female nudity). And the queen in the film, predictably, stabs and kills the traitor who raped her, so she is able to take back power by taking law into her own hands (though it can be argued that the queen consented to having sex, hence making her "revenge" a tricky moral quandary).
Another message many docile minds could receive is that racism is just fine. Again, even if the comic creator/filmmakers didn't intend this, it can still be communicated as such. A possible marketing "war cry" to this film could read: "watch a bunch of people who are slightly whiter (or should I say pinker?) slaughter the early "towelheads", some of which, as an added bonus, are black!" Not a very nice thing to say is it? Well that's just what I'm perceiving in this movie's possible racist undertones. I was actually quite relieved when I saw all the less tanned ones finally die at the end. A feeling I did not enjoy having, I should concede. Homophobia is also present in the film (even as the buff male bodies present seem to nourish gay impulses), adding to its "greatness" I suppose. Btw, those "boy lovers from Athens" had far far far more contributions to culture and history than the Spartan war mongers.
I suppose I wouldn't have even bothered analysing this film in any depth in the first place if I hadn't heard some of the "reviews" it received. Calling it "groundbreaking" and a "landmark" and "a film of a generation" kind of gave the impression that there was something more at work than just visceral stimulation and candied entertainment, didn't they? These reviews would be laughable if such dead ringing endorsements were not indicative of cultural malaise and intellectual bankruptcy. Obviously sheeple no longer know, among many other things they don't know in this information age, what groundbreaking means (and exactly what generation does that refer to? The one that's been dead for hundreds of years..or the current dead one?). The production company likely just paid off certain critic drones to give the movie such reviews, as often happens now. Those who make these kinds of films are primarily out for your money; secondarily, they might be using thrilling visuals to fool a lot of, well, fools into calling it, say, groundbreaking, to give themselves false psychological feelings that they have done something worthwhile–but by far they are just out for the money. Anyway, all the most base self-interest and nothing more in sight here. In fact, in this film there is no sight at all--just spectacle--and certainly not a lot worthwhile. Hey, maybe that's precisely why it's the film for "a {de}generation".