Review of 300: Posted on Movie Stop

As I exited the theater, following my viewing of 300, I said some terrible things that Inow deeply regret. It could have been the mob mentality or it could have been that Iwas overwhelmed by the IMax experience. It could have been any combination of factors that led me to believe and proclaim that I had just witnessed a masterpiece. So I walked around in my post movie stupor until I received a text message from a friend: “If you haven’t seen 300 yet, do so ASAP. It’s on par with Gladiator.” I responded by telling him that I had already seen it, but that it was by no means on par with Gladiator. The reply that I received from him were the two words that ended up changing my outlook on 300; all he asked me was “Why not?” This got me thinking about everything that didn’t make it as good as Gladiator, or just a good movie in general. As I sat there furiously typing a message in reply to him, I found myself writing such things as shallow characters, tedious dialog and terrible continuity. The more I typed, the more faults I thought of; and 300 quickly moved from the “masterpiece” category to the “Snakes on a Plane” category.

The movie 300, was not a particularly good or artful film, but it was entertaining to some degree. Watching 300 Spartans spear and slash their way through wave after wave of Persians was an extremely intense trip. Despite some continuity problems within these battles, most of them are extremely well choreographed. At first the special effects laced battles are awe inspiring, but as the movie wears on and it becomes apparent that they are all that the movie has to offer they lose some of their majesty.

In the end, the most frustrating part about watching 300 was not what was there, it’s what was not there. Every character lacked any amount of depth despite drawing from a rich source material of Frank Miller’s graphic novel ‘300′. Having read the graphic novel and knowing how great and complete the movie could have been, was the worst part for me personally. In the graphic novel there was a great amount of character conflict, and this made everyone from Leonidas to the hunchback feel more real. Also the plot was fairly nonexistent. Although there were shreds of plot sprinkled in between battles, by and large it didn’t have any impact nor did it add any depth to the movie.

While I largely only have negative things to say about the movie, these shortcomings will not stop it from being a smashing success. Zach Snyder knows what the average viewer enjoys: over the top fighting, little plot to slow down the action and cheesy(and mostly annoying) yet quotable one liners. So if you enjoy watching pointless battles then by all means rush out to the theater. But if you expect any amount of character development, plot or other qualities that make ‘good’ movies, then save yourself $10 and stay home.