This is Sparta
Spoiler warning. :P
Friday night, after a horrid day at work, I dared go to watch 300. I left work around 11/11:30 p.m. and raced down the Golden State (5) Freeway to hook up with friends for the 1 a.m. IMAX showing of 300 at the Irvine Spectrum. Neato, I made it in time to stand in line with my friends and get some quality bonding going on. The movie was pretty good. Flesh looked too good to be real. 300 is much better than Sin City. Sin City had 5 stories going on at the same time, whereas 300 was much more cohesive.
There are some out there that complain that 300 had gratuitous gore and sex. I would disagree. There was much less gore than many of the movies out there. Some would sensationalize the bloodfest by having red liquid spray everywhere when someone was decapitated or dismembered (very true of some horror flicks out there). But the cuts seemed very surgical and lacking much blood. True, there was slow-motion, heavily digitized blood splatter here and there, but it wasn't gratuitous.
Many comments I have seen concerning the sex scenes in the movie talk about how sex wasn't important. I however, felt the sex was integral to the plot. The first sex scene, between the king and queen, was not some dirty, taudry, animalistic behavior. The scene was very sensual lovemaking between husband and wife. It was how two consenting human beings were expressing their mutual love for each other. It was how the king could communicate his love for the queen under the layer and layers of Spartan machismo. Spartans have to reign in some of their emotions. This was further shown in a later scene in an inner monologue when the king lamented that he couldn't tell his wife he loved her. The second sex scene (all 10 seconds of it) also served purpose. It involved the queen and a corrupt senator. Some felt the queen should have kept up her queenliness and not do what she had done. I think it showed the queen's devotion to her husband and Sparta. She was willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to save Sparta, even let a man poke at her with his penis. And this scene wasn't even dragged out. It lasted all of 10 seconds and didn't show any nudity -- NONE! (Edit: maybe there was some. I kind of recall the Queen dropping something or untying something. I forget. If there was nudity, then it was very very brief because the actual sex was just close-ups of their faces together for 5 seconds.)
Overall, I liked 300 a lot. I'd even be willing to go see it again. Granted, I recognize that this movie isn't for everybody. You Athenians should just stay home and touch your little boys. But it's still pretty damn good. One complaint I do have is that the women in the movie would be considered more as modern concepts of beauty, rather than the classic Greek concept of beauty (the movie chicks were too thin).
P.S. Too many nipples and boobs for you? This is Greece, baby.
Friday night, after a horrid day at work, I dared go to watch 300. I left work around 11/11:30 p.m. and raced down the Golden State (5) Freeway to hook up with friends for the 1 a.m. IMAX showing of 300 at the Irvine Spectrum. Neato, I made it in time to stand in line with my friends and get some quality bonding going on. The movie was pretty good. Flesh looked too good to be real. 300 is much better than Sin City. Sin City had 5 stories going on at the same time, whereas 300 was much more cohesive.
There are some out there that complain that 300 had gratuitous gore and sex. I would disagree. There was much less gore than many of the movies out there. Some would sensationalize the bloodfest by having red liquid spray everywhere when someone was decapitated or dismembered (very true of some horror flicks out there). But the cuts seemed very surgical and lacking much blood. True, there was slow-motion, heavily digitized blood splatter here and there, but it wasn't gratuitous.
Many comments I have seen concerning the sex scenes in the movie talk about how sex wasn't important. I however, felt the sex was integral to the plot. The first sex scene, between the king and queen, was not some dirty, taudry, animalistic behavior. The scene was very sensual lovemaking between husband and wife. It was how two consenting human beings were expressing their mutual love for each other. It was how the king could communicate his love for the queen under the layer and layers of Spartan machismo. Spartans have to reign in some of their emotions. This was further shown in a later scene in an inner monologue when the king lamented that he couldn't tell his wife he loved her. The second sex scene (all 10 seconds of it) also served purpose. It involved the queen and a corrupt senator. Some felt the queen should have kept up her queenliness and not do what she had done. I think it showed the queen's devotion to her husband and Sparta. She was willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to save Sparta, even let a man poke at her with his penis. And this scene wasn't even dragged out. It lasted all of 10 seconds and didn't show any nudity -- NONE! (Edit: maybe there was some. I kind of recall the Queen dropping something or untying something. I forget. If there was nudity, then it was very very brief because the actual sex was just close-ups of their faces together for 5 seconds.)
Overall, I liked 300 a lot. I'd even be willing to go see it again. Granted, I recognize that this movie isn't for everybody. You Athenians should just stay home and touch your little boys. But it's still pretty damn good. One complaint I do have is that the women in the movie would be considered more as modern concepts of beauty, rather than the classic Greek concept of beauty (the movie chicks were too thin).
P.S. Too many nipples and boobs for you? This is Greece, baby.