So, about 300… Apparently you either love or hate this movie. I loved it and most of the reviewers are in the latter camp. Of course, I’m not sure what they were expecting. It seems they’re stuck in a lack-of-perspective vortex of some sort. The end result: 300 has been getting horrid reviews.
No spoilers below… well no spoilers that aren’t fairly obvious from the trailers…
I won’t disagree the reviewer who described 300 as “action porn” but I happen to enjoy “spending almost two hours watching a bunch of worked-out UK thespians battle for the survival of Hellenism in only sandals, leather codpieces, and vermilion capes.” (Though they were not codpieces at all obviously but anyone can publish a movie review these days.) I was drawn to this movie for 3 reasons: I love epic action films; I loved Frank Miller’s Sin City; mostly naked, hot men.
I enjoyed 300 a great deal. No, I loved it. I like most movies honestly and have a special soft spot for anything vaguely historical. 300 was indeed epic. The Spartans were gloriously insane. Every one of them, man or woman, was quite attractive. The action was intense and gore-filled but in Frank Miller’s beautifully stylized way, if you can accept picturesque beheadings and bejeweled blood-spray as beautiful. The cinematography held the audience’s attention but did not let us forget that this was indeed a movie based on a graphic novel with all the spectacle of butchery painted graphically but neatly on the screen for us. Some visuals were cliché but most were simply iconic.
Origins: 300 is a movie based on a a graphic novel written in the late ’90s, inspired by a 1962 movie (The 300 Spartans) of a historic event recorded by the victors. Historical accuracy is not what I look for in this sort of movie no more than I looked for it in Braveheart or 99% of the numerous King Arthur movies. Instead of romanticizing the Middle Ages, 300 romanticizes Ancient Greece. The spirit of the event is captured well enough in both the graphic novel and the movie, even if the historical details are skewed for author’s purposes. I don’t think many people look to Hollywood for accurate history lessons as much as for inspiration to go learn more about a particular aspect of history. (Spartans did actually wear armor from time to time.)
News flash: This is a comic book movie. (Just in case you missed it in the last paragraph!) I am not a comic book or graphic novel reader at all. In fact, the only graphic novels I’ve looked at in the past decade are Sin City and 300 specifically because of their related movies. This time I did not actually start to read 300 until after I saw the movie. Frank Miller has a particular visual style that he endeavored to translate to film as closely as possible. He succeeded nicely in doing so with Sin City and I believe he did again in the case of 300. Some of the more most striking shots are pulled from the pages of a graphic novel just like some of the stunning visuals in movie Sin City matched corresponding pages in the graphic novel. If it were anyone but Frank Miller I might agree with many points brought up by the professional critics. But it’s Miller and he has a meticulous attention to detail. He clearly had a vision for the film and I don’t think it was to provide a moralistic action flick. It’s by no means a perfect translation, but it certainly a true translation.
Green screen: The movie was shot entirely in front of a green screen. All the visuals have been highly tweaked, enhanced, and otherwise mucked with. For me this presentation further enhanced the stylization that evoked a graphic novel. The film was almost monochromatic which I found very effective. Several reviewers called it “airless” due to the green screen. I can see that, but for me that further evoked the very texture of the colors on the 2-dimensional page which seemed appropriate given that this is a movie reproducing a graphic novel. The movie at once evokes the watercolors bleeding on the page and the grain of the paper. The graphic novel’s color palate is just as limited as the movies: red, brown, black, a pale dirty blue sky and a bit of gold.
Xerxes: The movie spends more time with Xerxes than the graphic novel did. The invading god-king is larger than life and over-the-top decadent in his attire, means of transportation and entertainments. Xerxes is basically a tacky holiday ornament in the film: all gilt and garlands. But there is no doubt that he is a tyrant and a madman. His armies hint at the “thousand tribes” he conquered on his way to Greece and his monstrosities are equally varied and fantastic. I enjoyed the monstrosities perhaps a little more than I should have perhaps. The executioner with the grotesque scythe arms, war elephants and what lurked behind the Immortals’ masks all heightened the nightmarish quality of the encounters and Xerxes’ armies.
King Leonidas: King Leonidas is, forgive me, spartan by comparison. He walks with his soldiers, eats with his soldiers, and dresses like his soldiers insofar as they dressed at all. They actually wear even less in the graphic novel, by the by… His Spartans are all devoted the glory of dying in battle, which is handy since they’re hopelessly out-numbered. The Spartans are not exactly sane either, as you might have guessed, but they embody a bygone spirit a lot of people yearn for.They are a brotherhood united facing impossible odds with smiles and jokes. They are devoted to a common goal and they are almost unerringly skilled at what they do. (How often do we in our day-to-day encounter something like this? This kind of spirit makes movies about sports teams and the military so appealing.)
These over-dressed underwear models strike poses in battle straight out of the pages of the graphic novel. The battles are beautifully performed and intensely and intimately violent. As a side note: their attractiveness seems to be more a side-effect of making a Hollywood movie than an artifact from the graphic novel.
In short, this is a niche film that happened to have mainstream appeal. Mainstream expectations will be confused or disappointed. Miller’s translation of his graphic novel to the screen is successful - as always, audiences can take or leave it as they please. Go in looking for Frank Miller’s vision and glorious gore. Go in expecting what one might consider some cheesy posing by hot mostly-naked men. Enjoy it, relish in it. And if you walk away from this film wanting to go kill some Persians in the real world, perhaps you walked in wanting to kill some Persians. Rest assured that the rest of the Greeks dealt with Xerxes and his armies already.
tags: 300, 300 movie, entertainment, frank miller, movie review, movies, sin city
