This is madness.....
No. This is.....ok, maybe it is madness. In 300 Zack Snyder takes us back to Sparta in 480 B.C., in an adaptation of Frank Miller's Comic series. A series which, is itself an adaptation based of the famous story of the 300 Spartan soldiers who stood their ground against a million Persian soldiers. The basic equation here: Take an iconic story from the past, add a lot of blood, brash heroism, fantastic special effects, and leave out a solid plot and dialogue and you get an amazing movie, at least for a certain demographic.
The original story of the Battle of Thermopylae as told by Herodotus tells a story of the bravery of a king and 300 men who stayed to ward off the Persians while the rest of the army went back and prepared for war with the rest. This adaptation only starts with 300 brave Spartan soldiers, but every one of them is a near invincible machine in battle.
In fact, these men are so tough, that they go into battle with only a weapon, a sword, a cape and an uncomfortably small looking loin cloth. Oh, and their "can you tell me where the gym is" muscular chests are generally well oiled, which i assume is probably ancient Greek tanning oil. To be fair though, this actually adds to how god-like the director wants us to see his army in battle. Armor? We don't need no stinkin' armor.
Another thing the story lacks is a truly solid plot line, decent dialogue and offers some lackluster narrative. Of course, these days, if Morgan Freeman isn't narrating your movie, you might as well leave it out. Another thing you may notice during the movie is that there was apparently a lot of really creepy people back in those days, from the towering and a tad too flamboyant Persian ruler/god Xerxes to one of his executioners....who happens to have lobster hands.
So it sounds like this movie has some glaring flaws. Or perhaps, This movie delivers what it promises. Fast action, great special effects/art work, and enough decapitations, mutilations, impalement, and various other gruesome bloodsheds to fill a trilogy all wrapped up in 117 minutes. The certain 'demographic' i referred to earlier is people who appreciate a bit of well choreographed gore. Most battle scenes in movies tend to be a huge cluster of people swinging wildly and are generally too faced paced for you to see who's fighting who. Not the case here. Although the scenes are hard charging, its very easy to pick out the guys in red capes and bare chested......easily destroying an army of slaves, elite guards, war elephants and even a rhino. The film is done with a lot of green screen work, and the backgrounds give a very comic book feel, which is something you may expect from a Frank Miller adaptation. The movie gives near constant action and sprinkles it with a bit of gratuitous nudity, sex, and a bit of treachery, all staples in a good action movie.
