This! Movie! Stinks!
Where to start?
The acting was atrocious, but it was hard to know whether this was caused by the actors themselves or an underlying deficiency in the script. I’ve finally decided to hold the actors and the writers responsible, as there’s plenty of blame to go around. The dialogue was sophomoric, and the delivery was at turns wooden and hyperbolic with no in between. The Spartans are continuously screaming about freedom in the most clichéd manner imaginable (the queen actually says 'freedom isn't free'), but I never understood nor saw what kind of freedom they were referring to. Beyond King Leonidas telling his troops that Freedom is the reason they are going to take on all of
The director was apparently compensating for a lack of character development or any semblance of dramatic tension when he edited the film. Slow motion cuts of Spartan warriors slaughtering Persians, elephants, rhinos, and deformed giants were used often enough to add a good 30 minutes of screen time to this clunker. Every 5 seconds of battle footage shown at regular speed was followed by about 15 seconds of over-stylized slow-motion. The secret of the Spartan warriors has been revealed. They utilized a primitive version of the flux capacitor to slow down time and carefully plan each sword stroke. This technology was lost to the ages until Keanu Reeves used it in ‘The Matrix’ to dodge bullets and seduce Carrie-Ann Moss.
I’ve read several reviews that declare the cinematography and imagery to be the single redeeming quality of this movie. These reviews are totally wrong. The redeeming feature of this movie is not its special effects, which can be found in some of the better video games currently available. No, this movie is redeemed by its progressive attitudes regarding gender roles. This movie is, to my knowledge, the first ‘major’ motion picture that somehow manages to be homoerotic and homophobic at the same time. In one representative scene, King Leonidas of the Spartans flexes his massive abs, poses to further accentuate the ludicrous leather cod-piece he is wearing, and then proceeds to tell his similarly flexing, cod-piece wearing troops that they are far manlier then the ‘boy-loving’ Athenians. How very broad minded.
The most horrible aspect of this movie is that there is a good story in there somewhere. The ‘Battle of Thermopylae’ could make for a decent war movie if a different director gave it the generic ‘Saving Private Ryan’ treatment and a little bit of subtlety. This movie, for all it's hype and billing as a revolutionary war/action movie, has the least interesting violence I've ever watched. Unfortunately, the fans of the graphic novel upon which this drek is based turned out in numbers to give this relatively low budget flick a good opening weekend. I am fully expecting to see more movies that adhere to this style of film-making which is long on cliché, CGI, and hyperbole and short on actual entertainment. The other downside is that I’m going to have to start doing a lot more sit-ups.
Labels: flicks
posted by DC Viking at 1:24 PM
9 Comments:
Wait I thought the Spartans were boy lovers too.
I'm pretty sure they were, but that didn't fit the image they wanted in the movie, I guess.
I think that the problem lies in the fact that the material drawn from an actual historical event was taken from a graphic novel (or comic book or whatever the hell they are).
The director and writer of the film didn't know enough Greek History to make the film interesting, apparently. I was really excited to see it (as I like Classical history), but if this was worse than Troy (which it sounds like it was), I'll just wait for it to come on video and constructively criticize who had the best bodies. :)
Thanks for the review.
Academic -
Troy was no great movie, but it was entertaining, and much better than 300. As for analyzing the bodies, either there was CGI involved, or these guys did some serious gym time for this movie.
Barzelay -
I liked Sin City. The visuals were interesting, and while it was a little cheezy at times, it had that film noir, tounge in cheek comic book feel that kept it from becoming ridiculous. '300' seemed to be taking itself really seriously, and all the fun was drained out of it for me.
So glad i have a reason to avoid the movie that i have much suspected to be a dud. Thanks DCV!
Too bad. I had been looking forward to this one some.. though I did have some doubts from the early pics and marketing.
I think it was Chris Rock who said:
"Be careful what you wish for, I wanted a black Supreme Court Justice.. and got Clarence Thomas."
~Nato
Nato ~
The highlight of the movie for me, no joke, was when I realized that one of the Spartans was Faromir from Lord of the Rings. That was the height of the entertainment '300' provided me.
Come on, not every movie is supposed to be a highbrow, deep, piece of art.
If you think 300 was taking itself seriously, you were watching a different movie than the one I saw. For god's sake, it was a movie about the Battle of Thermopylae, and they never mentioned the said the word "Thermopylae." (Unless they did while I was taking a whizz.)
300 was all about hacking, slashing, and testosterone. But, I guess I shouldn't expect someone who cheers for a football team that plays inside to get that.
Anon-
Not every movie needs to be a highbrow piece of art. Spaceballs, Anchorman, and Sean of the Dead are all fantastic and entertaining movies and I don't think many people would consider them to be highbrow or artistic. My problem with this movie wasn't that it was an action movie, or that it wasn't historically accurate. This was a movie based on super violent battles. If you're going to overlook character, plot, and pacing, you're battle scenes better be awesome. I just don't find super slowmo shot after super slowmo shot to be all that cool.
As for the tenuous connection you make between my loyalty to the Vikings and my opinion of this movie; that's the kind of thing a Packer fan would say.
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