The 300 Post

I feel obligated to start this little review by saying that I didn’t like 300 as much as I expected to. The rave reviews from family and friends who had seen it before me, as well as the positive feedback in the critic world had led me to believe that this film was a guaranteed new favorite for me. Alas I found myself forcing myself to enjoy the movie more that I was.

First off I want to hail what the film does well. It has many positive aspects to it and what works, works wonders. However the end result was lost on me despite my attempt to love it. The cinematography was stunning; Frank Miller’s comic was realized in the flesh virtually page for page. I felt like I was watching a painting in motion. The acting (despite sorely mismatched accents) was more than expectable, and served the movie well.

I honestly think that that the bad outweighed the good. The bad being; the story telling, character establishment, and the overkilled (pun) gore. Character’s would die and I’d not care. People would be referred to and I’d have no idea who they were talking about unless it was Xereces or the Leonidus. In all honesty the original graphic novel was less than 100 pages, so it’s not surprising that the movie felt drawn out and suffered from plot issues throughout, but there was little to no connection made with the audience that made us value any of the killings and noble actions taking place on the screen. The Spartans are presented as nerveless killing machines from the get go, so there is little more to do than watch said machines do their job for the next 2 hours.

I like the idea of this movie much more than the movie itself, and with the exception of a few fight scenes and their accompanying special effects, I have to say that I enjoyed the commercial more than the full feature.