300

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Summary:
Only those with perfect pecs and abs can qualify as a Spartan warrior. Going against the rules, King Leonidas assembles 300 of his best warriors to fend off 1 million Persian soldiers in the historic battle of Thermopylae, based off the fictional account of Frank Miller's graphic novel.

Review:
The trailer was very fun to watch, and it looked like this was either going to kick a LOT of ass, or totally SUCK ass. For me, it was the latter.
I purposefully avoided reading Frank Miller's graphic novel after hearing it was going to be made into a movie, using the digital backlot process of green and bluescreens, a la Sin City and using heavy influence of the art of Miller's work. 300 is a testosterone-driven wannabe "epic battle masterpiece" which spends the majority of its time in slow motion. Every shot demands your attention, with efforts at being a work of art. Most of the time these cinematic displays of grandiose splendor are muddled by the overzealous efforts of achieving artistic recognition. Once the first wave of Persians attack our heartless war-trained Spartans, the 300 rush into battle with a long scene of pointless melodramatic excess. Ten seconds of Leonidas running in slow motion, then three seconds of him stabbing a guy in normal speed, with ten MORE seconds of him spinning around in slow motion, then normal speed STABBING, and repeat for what feels like a full half hour. It might have lasted two minutes, but whatever the length, this sad attempt at style threw me out of the movie and aggravated my patience with its repetition. Every battle has an interesting new wave of opponents, much like completing one level in a video game to progress to the next. Unfortunately, there isn't much hope of defeating these impenetrable Spartans, who were raised to be nothing but heartless and invincible warriors whose only desire is to be defeated with honor.

There is the attempt at showing a more human element to these dudes, showing the silent love in Leonidas' eyes to his wife. Of COURSE they don't profess their feelings verbally to their spouses. That would show weakness. Everything about these guys revolves around being nothing but the purest of the Id. To show love would be to admit a weakness. It's all about not showing weakness. Have I stressed this enough yet? If not, you'll get plenty more manliness from these dudes in cloaks who are always shirtless, and when walking in groups look like a modern entourage of supermodel male strippers heading to the hottest and wildest bachelorette party in history.
If you don't get enough of the posturing and cinematic glory for your male gratifications, then you can also relish in the laughable dialogue that further pounds the stamp of bad-assery even harder. The Spartans always refer to their women being braver than any other man on earth. The verbal rips against the Persians are usually by comparing their ineptitude of destroying the Spartans as not even reaching the capabilities of the women of Sparta. When the messenger asks why the queen has any kind of counsel to the King in his presence, she even replies "Because only the women of Sparta give birth to TRUE men." Oooh, snap! That's so... cliched. And unfunny. What the fuck?! After that lib, the movie continues to make jokes about Persians being as weak as ladies, that they're pansies.
When they aren't laughing at their opponents, they are endlessly talking about the glory of battle, laughing at the face of death. To die with honor... is the greatest honor. Yes, this is SOOOOOO coool!! Yippee. SHUT THE FUCK UP! Even worse is when they're in the heat of battle, and making one-liner quips to one another. Providing jest and humor while slaughtering one after another with boring spear impalements.
Please, let this movie end now. By the last ten minutes, each scene in slow motion makes my ass scream to jump out and run home. The hamfisted attempt at subplot between the Captain and his son, or any other character is lost in the cheesiness of it all. And that damned narrator. "His helmet; was stifling" Shush. "His shield; was heavy." FUCK YOU!
When I saw Sin City, I did think at some points that the VO got a tad overused, but it's a direct translation of the comic. On top of that, the things these people said were interesting more than not, and it was the inner thoughts of the characters onscreen. For each story segment, there was one voice narrating to the audience his thoughts and actions. That is much more acceptable and viable for VO than this movie's unnecessary attempt at style. Just... it's not needed for this movie. It's fine in comic book form, but for the movie 300, it didn't work. Unlike with Sin City.
Just when you thought it was over, there's one more long-winded speech made by a dude that tries to wax poetic, and pass off as Shakespearian. He talks about the remembrance of the greatest 300 ever assembled, speaking to thousands upon thousands but talking in a normal levelled speaking voice. Actually, he's just talking to us, the audience, who at this point are either crying for the end credits like me, or relishing in each word he speaks, further getting pumped for more asskickery and manliness that is sure to ensue. He doesn't stop talking, and talking and TALKING. Dude, it's over now! We don't need to hear this! We already saw what we came here to see. Just SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!!

The battle of Thermopylae is a truly exciting piece of history, and is ripe for making into an epic movie. I have a feeling that a lot of what I didn't enjoy with 300 would be a lot more acceptable in graphic novel form. I still want to read Miller's work. I can play the frames as quickly or slowly as I want while looking at the pictures, and Miller's use of narration is more applicable in comic book form than it is for this movie. I also know that liberties have been taken for the cinematic presentation, not following Miller's novel as faithfully as Sin City did. Either way, I wish it just remained a graphic novel instead of the waste of time that this was.

GRADE: D-

Reviewed: 3/11/07