300

[robin_d_laws]

The elements I liked about 300 were sufficiently cool that I wanted to buy into the flick completely. Couldn’t quite get there, though. Part of the problem is structural; the climax occurs at the end of the first act. Mainly, though, I kept being tossed out of the movie by the excessive use of voice-over. I understand the desire to be faithful to

Comments

[ex_gobi]

I didn't care for the voiceover either. About 90% of the scenes where it was present would've been better "silent." I loathe voiceover in almost every movie.

[ursulav]

I definitely noticed that myself (although my thought was less articulately phrased as "Faramir needs to shut the hell up.") It was a little too jarring--I enjoyed the movie, but that particular bit could definitely have used some clean-up.

[sorceror]

I didn't mind either. Having not read the comic, I didn't realize the Queen's story was mostly new until I heard afterward that they'd added bits. I guess they wanted to have a strong female character for balance.

Personally I thought it didn't make her as sympathetic as they may have been hoping. Though parts of the audience did cheer when she got Theron in the council chamber scene, so I guess the producers knew what they were doing.

[prodigal]

A friend of mine theorised that they increased Gorgo's role in order to have an actual female presence in the thing. Can't disagree with him on that.

[semerkhet]

Agreed on the voice over. Additionally, I felt that the dialogue in general was pretty poor. I mean, they actually had a character say "Freedom isn't free." The Fox News analogy is apt. I don't know how much of this is a hold-over from the comic, having only glanced through it briefly a couple years ago

Dialog

[heliograph]

A friend's comment from Sin City:

"Dialog that reads great on the comix page may not sound as good when you read it out loud."

Re: Dialog

[sadrx]

I agree completely. And then of course I found out the Queens speech back home (the worst of it, second only to Dilios' speech at the end) was actually not in the comic book. Huh? Then someone mentioned to me Frank Miller came back and wrote it. I'm not sure if that's true, but it would make a lot of sense.

[ogier30]

I think the Spartans actually seemed to be fighting in pairs, a lot of the time. There were more than few moments where they had one Spartan blocking a blow aimed at another, while that Spartan would then strike. And many many shots where Spartans were lifting their shields, which is what disqualified the hunchback. The also at least named checked the Phalanx formation a few times after that first fight (in particular, when the Captain goes blood mad after his son is killed).

[memento_mori]

You think they would have learned from Sin City. Marv never said, "And then the stolen police car I was driving plunged into the water..." -- he was talking about other stuff. That's what made it work.

I didn't like it when they cut to scenes from Gladiator. Fields of wheat and children indeed! And I pretty much hated Gorgo's whole "the war back home" stuff. Lame.

[wyldelf]

The only connection between 300 and Sin City is Frank Miller, and he didn't have the same level of input in 300. The movie team was completely different, so I'm not surprised that things they got right in SC were wrong in 300. Robert Rodriguez is a more astute director than Zack Snyder.