Summary:
King Leonidas leads three hundred Spartans in a fight against King Xerxes and his massive army.
My Thoughts:
When this film came out, I remember people raving about it, saying that they’d seen nothing like this ever before. While the action in this movie is pretty much the same thing as bullet time from “The Matrix”, the heavily stylized world is something rather unique. I have to admit, I was one of those people that thought this was absolutely incredible, and my friends and I must’ve watched it a half a dozen times. “300” made a splash at the box office, and it more or less put Zack Snyder (director of “Dawn of the Dead (2004)”) on the radar as far as comic book movies go.
Whatever you think of Snyder, you have to admit that he does have some cool ideas, and this film, while it’s far from perfect, is one of Snyder’s better ones. Some of the dialogue might not sound as awesome as it used to, and some of the action doesn’t look as cool as it did thirteen years ago, but overall this film’s bold style and unapologetic attitude still make it enough for me to revisit it every so often.
“This is Sparta!”
After a messenger from King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, “Ben-Hur (2016)”) threatens King Leonidas’s (Gerard Butler, “Reign of Fire”) kingdom of Sparta, the Leonidas asks the oracles permission to go to war, but they refuse. Desperate to defend his people, Leonidas leads a small ground of 300 Spartans to a defensible position, while his wife Gorgo (Lena Headey, “Fighting with My Family”) tries to convince councilman Theron (Dominic West, “Tomb Raider (2018)”) and the other elders to go to war. As Leonidas and his men (David Wenham, “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”; Michael Fassbender, “12 Years a Slave”; Vincent Regan, “Troy”) fight off hordes of men, they hope the rest of the army will come to their aid.
You know, despite all of its flaws, I actually still really enjoy this movie, but I know that it is pretty flawed, so let me get my qualms out of the way first. For one thing, the dialogue in this movie is pretty silly. There are so many lines that feel like they were lifted directly from a comic book, which, honestly, they probably were, as this is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel. I’m sure the dialogue looks great on paper, but when it’s spoken, we sometimes get lines that border on laughable. Who can forget great lines like: “Give them nothing, but take from them, everything!” “Immortals… we put their name to the test.” (that second line is even repeated a couple of times) There’s also the fact that we have Dilios (Wenham) narrating the entire thing using, again, what I’m assuming are lines lifted directly from the comic. Sometimes I think the narration works, and sometimes it doesn’t. This time through however, I did notice this time through that without the narration, the story wouldn’t make a lot of sense. We have Dilios literally explain the plot to us from beginning to end, and Snyder is left to play with his visuals, which admittedly, are pretty cool.
So aside from the weak-ish writing, this film is just a ton of fun. Let’s be honest; sometimes when I’m looking for an action movie, it doesn’t need to be the smartest movie I’ve ever seen. I can have just as much fun in a smart action movie (“Inception”) as I can in a dumb one (“Rambo: First Blood Part II”). This movie is towards the dumb side of the spectrum- there’s not a ton going on as far as plot, but that’s not wholly a bad thing. Look at movies like “The Raid: Redemption” or “John Wick”; those movies are all action/style, and very little plot. This movie is the same way, just a lot more heavily stylized as far as graphics. I hold movies like “The Raid” and “John Wick” in higher esteem because of the stunt work and action choreography, but as I keep saying, this film does have a style of its own.
In my review for “Dick Tracy” I talked about how that film had a style of “comic-book realism”, and that’s kind of what this film has going for it too. All of the characters are, of course, live action, but almost 100% of the location is CGI. The look takes a little getting used to, but it provides some really awesome effects. For one thing, Snyder is able to completely shift the color tone from one scene to another without it feeling completely alien. This kind of landscape also helps the visual effects, which don’t look amazing, but because they’re set in this pseudo-fantastical world, the effects totally match what we see on screen.
The action in this film is also a ton of fun. There’s a very distinct style that Snyder used in this movie as well as a few of his others (before people started mocking him for it). He likes to mess with the speed of the action, so we’ll have moments where all the characters move at normal speed, then right as a character’s sword slashes through a Persian the action slows down and we get to see every detail of the carnage. It boasts some pretty great moments, and those action sequences are honestly the only reason I keep coming back.
Verdict:
While I don’t love this movie as much as I used to, I do think it still holds up pretty well. I’m sure there will always be some part of me that wants to come back and watch Gerard Butler scream “THIS IS SPARTA” before he kicks an unsuspecting messenger into a bottomless pit.
Yes, this movie is pretty ridiculous; that’s part of it’s charm.
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