300 was not as good as I heard it would be.
The hype on this film seems to solely be in that there is so heavy a pandering to the male-orientated audience. It was, to be frank, lacking. For one, the drama- the queen's plight was not worth mentioning. Gorgo never once felt like more than just a sex object outside of her initial spite towards the Persian messenger. Her sleeping with Leonidas and Theron could be seen from a mile away, as the story had no clue what to do with her outside of that. The 'offering of her body' was just a waste of time; in reality, it was just to lead up to one cool moment that tried to validate the subplot. If the tale was trying to attract a female audience or give an attempt at an actual storyline, it fell short.
The second would be Leonidas. I won't show shame- having not read the comic, I cannot say I have intimate knowledge of the characters or their names. With that said, the movie makes no attempt to aid me in this outside of remembering the title character and a few other people who seemlessly merge in with the sepia filter. Characterization doesn't seem to be the film's upper hand. It just puts masculine lines into the men's mouths in hopes that everyone who's not a testosterone junkie finds it just as cool.
Thirdly, the matter of the godly Spartans comes to mind. The beginning of the film gave me false hope. The fact that it addressed the harsh reality of Spartan life so well made me believe it would show the equal monstrosity of both sides to compensate for the obvious artistic license taken with the Persians. The film doesn't do this at all. It makes the Persians out to be stereotypes straight out of something like Heart of Darkness. I'm not talking about racism or anything like that- it's that the opposing side is simply a faceless evil. Xerxes is the only one with personality, and even then there were people laughing out loud at the appearance of him. The 300 Spartans (artistic license again in the numbers) are made out to be honorable warriors with a violent streak when the truth was that they were much more brutal. 300 portrays them with an almost antiseptic feel. The fact that the Persians have Unnamed Ogre Fellow and Fat Man with Hooks for Arms on their side doesn't help. And what about the Arcadians? Wall flowers used to beef up the Spartan's bloated greatness. And for all this, how do the Spartans go out? In the middle of a defensive position? With ease. Meh.
And when I say 'sepia filter', it's like that's the only thing this film feels comfortable using. This comes in glaringly when you see close-ups. I could literally still see grit left over in pixelation when Leonidas' face came up close in some shots. For a film placing such importance on the visual aspect some parts looked downright mediocre. The SFX is another issue- the elephant and wolf imagery is just...bland. The Hero copy-and-paste "rain of arrows" comes into play here as well. The lighting is novel until about halfway in the film, when you start seeing scenes that cleverly use the perception of natural light (though it's not) to illuminate the sequences. It just annoys me that they could use the lighting so well yet choose to drape everything in an attempt to further remind you that this is not set in current times. The slow motion shots were also sort of galling. The first time it's visually appealing, but by the time they're in the phalanx formation you've seen it once too often.
I know up until now one could claim I hate the film. I don't. I freely admit that I prefer films with more intellectual meat than this film offers. But for what it's worth, this is a comic book film geared towards action. I'm not a fan of films solely geared towards this, but for what it's worth 300 is a good movie. It takes a lot of guts for a film to embrace the comic book aspect to an adaption of a historical event. I liked the cartoony CG blood. The film didn't just throw the comic to the side nor did it overly delve in realism. While the Persians were romanticized and villified characteristically, their monstrosity wasn't overplayed to the point of personal revulsion. The action was solid and the hard attempt at making a movie worth watching present. The film leaves the story with a smidge of hope, which is a bit more poetic of the Spartan's plight than it had to be. The sense that there is victory to be had after the final defeat. That wasn't bad at all. Dilios was an unexpected survivor, though the narration hints at that for some time, and Ephialtes' outer reflection of his inner darkness was good in execution.
Overall, it was a very good effort at A material. But, given the slew of flaws and the fact that the film revels a bit too much in simple violence and gore to be anything more than a forgetable popcorn flick I can't give it more than a B or 80%, and voice my disappointment that it wasn't the A+ movie most have claimed it to be.
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