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Movie Reviews, & Film Industry Commentary
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2007 – R – 116 min.
Director: Zack Snyder
Primary Cast: Gerard Butler, Lena Headley, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Michael Fassbender, Tom Wisdom, Andrew Pleavin, Andrew Tiernan, Rodrigo Santoro
Stars ** 1/2 (of 5)
Popcorn **** (of 5)
Film Type(s): Action, History, Stylized, War
Synopsis: Based on Frank Miller’s Graphic Novel of the same name, we see the events that eventually lead Spartan Warrior King Leonidas (Butler) to lead a reluctant war / battle with only his 300 strong personal guard against the million man Persian Army, lead by the tyrannical Xerxes (Santoro). While Leonidas fights to keep his lands safe and free, his loving Queen Gorgo (Headley) works to prevent some home grown reluctance and sabotage from preventing aid, since the very democratic process Leonidas is fighting for is preventing him from getting aid as well. 300 also features a cast of relative unknowns, with only Butler, Headley, and Wenham having done any major international films prior to this.
Review: A gory and bloody adaptation by the director of the remake of Dawn of the Dead of Frank Miller’s Graphic Novel stylizing the Battle of Thermopylae, an ancient Greek Alamo pitting 300 Spartans against the million men of the Persian Army. Although we are presented with some stunning visuals and a strong sense of duty and levity from the characters, especially Butler’s King Leonidas (not surprising, since he had previous held the title roles in Andrew Lloyd Webers’ Phantom of the Opera, Beowulf, and Dracula 2000), we are primarily presented with a lots of gore, mindless violence, and MTV editing (hurry up and slow down). The real confusion comes from the scripting. Although women are presented as strong and warrior-like in their way, they are confusingly presented here also as sexual, rather than sensual, as is the villain. In fact, Xerxes I (Santoro) is like something out of Science Fiction tyrants (an artificially deep voice, over sized, over sexualized) rather than a historical one; though, this is par for the course for Santoro, “The Tom Cruise of Brazil” who has been used to similar effect in Love Actually and Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle. The Script also suffers by over using terms like ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ without backing them up and misses opportunities to do so (such as the scenes in the Acropolis, choosing instead to focus on the ‘strong willed woman scorned’). Though very similar in many respects (especially the production values) to Sin City, Frank Miller took only a minimal role behind the scenes in this adaptation of his work. Indeed, Millers writing skills are full of excellent concepts if not always adaptable (ie. 2005’s Elektra) and, hold great potential. His ‘Batman Year One’ proved full of concepts that were eventually partially adapted into the critical hit Batman Begins. The point is that though historians may balk at this film for its inaccuracies (The Spartans were only a PART of the force against the Persians) and it certainly isn’t for all tastes, it never claims to be history and is indeed only stylized history if anything. So if you want a gory fight film, this may be the one for you.
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