l4m3
Well, I finally saw 300. I got a pack of HD-DVDs ('cause they're damn cheap now, y'know), and was happy to pay the price for the bundle for only the ones I really wanted. The others were freebies, as far as I was concerned. One of these was 300. I'm glad I didn't really pay money for it.
I expected to hate the historical inaccuracies. I don't mean the elephants and rhinos, or the costumes. I understand it's told as myth, it's not going to conform to history in those ways. I mean the distortions of the events that don't even show the Spartans in good light, just the soldiers. The whole 'must not fight in holy time'? That was Spartan. Purely Spartan, not Greek. It wasn't some giant Greek church saying they couldn't. The rest of the Greeks fought the Persians for some months before the Spartans got off their arses and joined in. It also wasn't just 300 people at the final stand, more like 2000. Including the Spartans' slaves, people we don't see much of in the movie amidst the bleating of 'freedom', 'liberty' and 'justice'. I knew I'd object to the inexplicable Spartan homophobia, too, though it's only really one line. And that's just the beginning of the sins against history committed.
Even that was something I figured I'd get over. I can get over a lot. I got over the silly portrayal of Commodus in Gladiator, for instance. I love that film, despite its misuse of history.
No, the film's real glaring sin is that... well, it's boring. Every single shot is something we've seen before. It adds nothing to the language of cinema. The minimalist sets are merely empty. The action is unengaging. The dialogue is woefully, woefully bad. The characters never get beyond Yet Another Frank Miller Tough Guy. Leonidas breaks into contemporary colloquialisms every other sentence. David Wenham's the only one I cared at all about, and even him only because he's cute. The final battle? Pointless.
That's really the core of it. This isn't a story about Thermopylae. It isn't even a movie about the Spartans. It's Frank Miller's love letter to tough guys. The YAFMTGs rule the day. At least Sin City actually had some neat visuals to go along with the love letter; 300 I found almost as boring as the Motionless Picture (which I saw again last night, so I know what I'm talking about, and goddamn I'm glad I had web research to do while watching).
I expected to hate the historical inaccuracies. I don't mean the elephants and rhinos, or the costumes. I understand it's told as myth, it's not going to conform to history in those ways. I mean the distortions of the events that don't even show the Spartans in good light, just the soldiers. The whole 'must not fight in holy time'? That was Spartan. Purely Spartan, not Greek. It wasn't some giant Greek church saying they couldn't. The rest of the Greeks fought the Persians for some months before the Spartans got off their arses and joined in. It also wasn't just 300 people at the final stand, more like 2000. Including the Spartans' slaves, people we don't see much of in the movie amidst the bleating of 'freedom', 'liberty' and 'justice'. I knew I'd object to the inexplicable Spartan homophobia, too, though it's only really one line. And that's just the beginning of the sins against history committed.
Even that was something I figured I'd get over. I can get over a lot. I got over the silly portrayal of Commodus in Gladiator, for instance. I love that film, despite its misuse of history.
No, the film's real glaring sin is that... well, it's boring. Every single shot is something we've seen before. It adds nothing to the language of cinema. The minimalist sets are merely empty. The action is unengaging. The dialogue is woefully, woefully bad. The characters never get beyond Yet Another Frank Miller Tough Guy. Leonidas breaks into contemporary colloquialisms every other sentence. David Wenham's the only one I cared at all about, and even him only because he's cute. The final battle? Pointless.
That's really the core of it. This isn't a story about Thermopylae. It isn't even a movie about the Spartans. It's Frank Miller's love letter to tough guys. The YAFMTGs rule the day. At least Sin City actually had some neat visuals to go along with the love letter; 300 I found almost as boring as the Motionless Picture (which I saw again last night, so I know what I'm talking about, and goddamn I'm glad I had web research to do while watching).