Tuesday, March 13, 2007

300

Have you ever wonder what would happen if a movie was created for the sole purpose as a form of testosterone? Really you have? Oookay … well … here is that movie. Of course if you are going to go for that solid male demographic, Frank Miller is definitely the man to turn to for a story. Whereas the majority of comic book translations have been at best hit or miss, it is a welcome change to see Frank Miller’s work be represented skillfully on the silver screen. 300 takes one of the best movie premises, the times of swords and sandals, and just makes an entire movie out of the best parts, rousing speeches, fighting, nudity, and cool deaths.

When I read 300 in comic book form, I wondered how this could possibly be a 2-hour movie. Literally the book begins on the eve of battle and ends at the end of the 3-day battle. There were a handful of quick flashbacks but nothing that would stretch past a few minutes. Yet by manufacturing a storyline for the Spartan Queen and a hell of a lot of slow motion during the fights scenes, hey, we got ourselves a feature film. The best parts of the dialogue were all direct rips from the pages of the book. Every speech Leonidas or Dilios gave on screen were nearly word for word and that is not a bad thing, they were great words when read and they are even better when spoken. Although I have no problem with the constant rousing of the troops, it did reach the point of overkill. Seeing one every 10 minutes means that none of them end up having the power similar to ones in Braveheart or Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Still it is fun to hear “this is where we fight; this is where they die” or “belly your breakfast because tonight we dine in hell.” Also where the fight scenes were done through a few panels in the book, Zack Snyder was able to create several memorable extended Spartans in action moments. I am very interested to see how a few of them were filmed. Of all the actors, Gerard Butler and David Wenham dominate the screen. Raise your hand if you thought Terry Sheridan was the best part of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life … you damn liar. As for the rest of these dudes, where the hell do you cast this many actors with 60-pack abs? Was that computer generation? I feel very insignificant. Damn you 300. I mentioned earlier about creating a B plot for the Queen that had no basis in the book; I did not mean this as a negative. I understand that it helps round the movie since without it the whole thing is one long fight scene. Plus without it there is no McNulty in a toga. I am not going to stand in the way of Dominic West outside of The Wire. I did feel that the climax of the Queen’s story undercut some of the power of what Dilios is doing at the end of the movie but I can live with it. I can live with a lot of what happened during this movie and much of it involved the Oracle.


So 300 exceeded my expectations. That is becoming a regular occurrence this year. It is definitely more fun to be saying that as opposed to once again I have been let down by this piece of gutter trash. This is just a movie that is easy to watch. No heavy lifting, no dead space, just action followed by action followed up with some more action, then topped off with some action. I really can’t complain.

8 out of 10

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