Movie Review: 300 (2 out of 5 stars)
Zack Snyder’s 300 is filled with as many bad lines as it is unintentional ironies. The worst of the first: “My heart is filled with hate.” The most striking of the latter: that truth and freedom is represented by burly men with beards who all dress alike, while the deviants, body piercers, and transsexuals apparently side with tyranny and repression. Go figure. But that sort of thing is to be expected from a nearly neo-con like Frank Miller, the author of the graphic novel on which the film is based; we can forgive it, as long as there’s style and badass fights and an indefinable cool along with it.
Unfortunately, there isn’t. Unlike its older sibling, Sin City, this Miller adaptation does not translate smoothly to the big screen. Whereas Robert Rodriguez picked and chose from Miller’s collection of noir tales to make an effective, stylish, and uniquely cinematic experience, Zack Snyder remains slavishly adherent to Miller’s original pacing and narrative, and it costs him. The movie, which should be sweeping and action-packed, feels like it’s being viewed in static, rectangular blocks. We’re forced to wait for Snyder to turn the page, he reads a hell of a lot slower than we do. The few changes Snyder makes in his screenplay are pointless additions, including an irrelevant home front political sub-plot and several “big boss” videogame-style foes.
On the plus side, 300 has some good verbal sparring and some nifty choreography. But even those don’t feel original. The beautiful classical coloring and rural landscapes are right out of Gladiator; the swarms of arrows are right out of Hero; and the devil-may-care-yet-deadly-earnest attitude is right out of Braveheart. None of that is tied together, though, into a coherent whole. There’s no sense of environment or place, no frame of reference for the viewer. The spraying blood never lands on the ground, because there is no ground; it’s all CGI. When you create your own world, you have to tell the computer everything that you want to see, and remembering the little details is, apparently, too much work. Instead the filmmakers simply focus the camera on the actors in front of them, and forget to tell the computer to generate everything else that should be happening. Instead of there being a raging battle to the left, right, and behind our vision, instead of a real world out there of thrashing bodies and stray javelins, we have the feeling that the next wave of enemies is waiting in the wings, politely delaying their attack until the camera can get them in its field of view. Maybe they needed a bigger green screen.
Unfortunately, there isn’t. Unlike its older sibling, Sin City, this Miller adaptation does not translate smoothly to the big screen. Whereas Robert Rodriguez picked and chose from Miller’s collection of noir tales to make an effective, stylish, and uniquely cinematic experience, Zack Snyder remains slavishly adherent to Miller’s original pacing and narrative, and it costs him. The movie, which should be sweeping and action-packed, feels like it’s being viewed in static, rectangular blocks. We’re forced to wait for Snyder to turn the page, he reads a hell of a lot slower than we do. The few changes Snyder makes in his screenplay are pointless additions, including an irrelevant home front political sub-plot and several “big boss” videogame-style foes.
On the plus side, 300 has some good verbal sparring and some nifty choreography. But even those don’t feel original. The beautiful classical coloring and rural landscapes are right out of Gladiator; the swarms of arrows are right out of Hero; and the devil-may-care-yet-deadly-earnest attitude is right out of Braveheart. None of that is tied together, though, into a coherent whole. There’s no sense of environment or place, no frame of reference for the viewer. The spraying blood never lands on the ground, because there is no ground; it’s all CGI. When you create your own world, you have to tell the computer everything that you want to see, and remembering the little details is, apparently, too much work. Instead the filmmakers simply focus the camera on the actors in front of them, and forget to tell the computer to generate everything else that should be happening. Instead of there being a raging battle to the left, right, and behind our vision, instead of a real world out there of thrashing bodies and stray javelins, we have the feeling that the next wave of enemies is waiting in the wings, politely delaying their attack until the camera can get them in its field of view. Maybe they needed a bigger green screen.