300 Movie Review

I saw this last night with a female friend. Coincidentally, the last time I saw her was when we saw Sin City, so I guess we have Frank Miller to thank for reuniting us.

Hopefully director Zack Snyder will have a long, illustrious career, so we don't have to say that Dawn of the Dead was the more plot-heavy of his movies. 300 has very little story--it's all surface and spectacle. Not unlike the book, in fairness to Snyder and whoever wrote the script. The script is structured very close to the book and uses much of the dialogue, occasionally improving it or dumping Miller cornball stuff like the waiting Spartan army saying, "Come and get it." For the most part, though, Snyder is just fine with Miller's corn. The subplot with the Queen dealing with a slimy politician and trying to get the Council to approve sending more troops to aid in the war against Thermopylae (Persia) is stiff and rote and one can tell Snyder just wants to get back to another battle sequence. The sequences are good, though, extremely stylish with lots of slo-mo, spraying blood, and heavy metal. At times, the desire to be extreme falls flat, such as a close-up of a spinning, just-severed head that is phony and bloodless, and in fact the blood looks terrible. I understand Snyder wanted "an opera of violence" but the result is that whenever a foe is struck, drops of blood fly around like Skittles, never joined together, never staining any of the Spartans causing that blood to flow. It doesn't work, but the art direction and cinematography are mostly top-notch, bringing Miller's over-the-top designs to life. Like Sin City, this is a bit of a problem if you don't want to just totally embrace the goofiness of it, because every single Persian is a total freak. Some Iranians are incensed by the film, which is understandable in that there isn't a single Persian character who isn't either evil, depraved, deformed or effeminate. Actually, the only Persian character is the god king Xerxes, who is painted and pierced and plucked until he's so done-up and bizarre he isn't threatening at all. In its best moments, the film is a lighter but cooler-looking Braveheart, with good battles, a suitably commanding leader in King Leonidas, and an adequately stirring speech or three dozen about freedom and courage and SHHPAARRTTAAA!!! Oh, and the queen and the druggy Oracle are both beautiful and have panic-button nipples that were pretty alarming since we were seated in the front row. I would say the film might also appeal to gay men for all the Spartan beefcake on display as well, though the creepy Persians might kill the buzz.