August 28, 2007

300

300 was not exactly what I was expecting. I was expecting a historical retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, full of drama, action, historical accuracy, and realism. I guess I should have done a little more reading up on what the movie was, because it was something completely different. It's my own fault though, because anyone who'd bothered to check would have known this. 300 is the movie adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name, and a very good adapation of it at that. But because it is a very good adaptation, it oozes the Frank Miller style, and is more of a tall tale account of the battle, with outrageous creatuers and larger than life characters.

The movie is quite good, but you should not go into this expecting much of a story or a lot of drama. Characters are archetypical, from King Leonidis to the description of the Spartans to the traitor and Xerces the Great. If you leave this movie thinking those are accurate depictions of the characters and Spartan society, you'll be fooling yourself. (Not that everything described about Sparta was incorrect.) The basic facts about the actual battle, however, are fairly accurate. You can compare the events of the film with those described in the Wikipedia article about the Battle of Thermopylae.

Overall, a very enjoyable movie with outstanding if fantastical visuals and stylized combat and an excellent score. I didn't really like the metal that played a few times as a sort of theme song, but I'm sure most people found it worked very well.

Posted by josuah at August 28, 2007 6:31 AM UTC+00:00