A LEGEND, a MYTH, a bedtime story Spartans told their children

Rating: 7/10 (21 August 2007)

Wow was I hesitant to see this film after reading the pretty much 50/50 split of people on here who loved/hated it! Despite all that, I managed to go into it with NO expectations whatsoever. And lo and behold, I am now firmly entrenched in the "This...is...SPARTA!" camp on this one...while not a fantastic, nor great film, it is certainly worthy of the praise it has received and absolutely UNdeserving of being called a "racist" movie, or a "US army recruitment film" or in any way degrading or insulting to modern-day descendents of ancient Persians. Um...it's a dumb action movie...get over it! In theory, the historical truth of the tale of the 300 Spartans is very exciting, however translated to film, the Battle of Thermopylae would be...in a word...BORING.
Hence the artistic licence taken here. C'mon, would you really sit there watching wave after wave of Persians assault an impenetrable line of Spartan shields and spear points? Coz guess what? That's what ACTUALLY happened at Thermopylae for the first 2 days...Xerxes just kept sending troops against the Spartan phalanx, each unit meeting the same fate as the one before it. That's a valiant and effective defence...but would make for an incredibly dull film.
We must also remember that this ENTIRE movie (besides the first 2 and last 2 minutes) is NARRATED by a SPARTAN, so of course he's going to embellish and exaggerate, he is, after all, giving a speech to men about to go into battle. What better way to inspire them than with the story of their great fallen King Leonidas? Thus, this film is NOT an historical epic (nevermind that it NEVER claims to be, you lefty weirdos) but a LEGEND, a MYTH, an epic bedtime story that Spartans tell their kids...
Only ONE MASSIVE PLOT HOLE bothered me...and that is, why on Earth would you insult someone who could (and actually DID) tell the enemy a way to totally surround and thus annihilate your forces? I could not forgive the character of Leonidas for that...it was plain IDIOCY. It was OBVIOUS what Ephialtes was gonna do! But...moving on...
The film is nothing short of a visual feast, it's stunning. I'm a big fan of "battle movies" but this came very clsoe to blowing me away. I only wish there had of been more "big battles"...for instance the one at the end...where we see 10,000 Spartans gathered...what a bloodbath that battle would have been...anyway...I'll stop rubbing my hands together with macabre glee and get on with typing now... I'm also not a great fan of over-use of CGI, but here it is used almost entirely, which means that I was able to see this movie pretty much as an animated battle film with some live actors in the main parts, coz that's technically what it is. I think 90% of it was shot in a green/blue screen studio. But so what? As LOTR demonstrated, CGI, when used WELL, is a fantastic tool to tell "BIG" stories that otherwise would not be practical to put up on screen.
Now to the cons...and there is a few unfortunately...the first being that moment of stupidity on the part of Leonidas in refusing to at least let Ephialtes "tag along"...or maybe kill him...ANYTHING to keep him away from the Persians, you idiots. This made it damn near impossible to feel any sympathy when - shock horror - Ephialtes defects to the Persian side and the "300" are surrounded and wiped out. In fact (and I'll be unpopular in this view no doubt) I was cheering for the Persians from the get go, not just because I know they win...but because aside from Gerard Butler's and David Wenham's characters, the Spartans were a pack of forgettables who wouldn't be out of place as extras on Baywatch. The Persians also looked heaps cooler (those flowing robes, and the shiny face masks of the Immortals...beautifully-realised characters all, and heaps cooler-looking than buff dudes in red capes and sandals, although the Spartan phalanx scene looked really good, I must admit. As a whole, I cannot fault the film for visuals...every scene is a work of art. Story-wise it could have been heaps better, historically it's pretty inaccurate and omits a lot. But hey, for a big-budget spectacle action film, it certainly fires on all cylinders, and it's certainly one I'll be viewing again.