Gary Farber has been collecting reviews of 300, the new movie about the Spartans at Thermopylae, and they certainly are amusing — I haven’t seen the movie, but I suspect my opinion of it will be close to Howard Waldrop’s and Lawrence Person’s. I saw the trailer, and while the cartoonish style is to be expected given the source, the lack of historicity and indulgence in fantasy grates terribly. At least the kitsch is generating interesting reactions.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
MAN BEARD BLOG loves PZ Myers and MAN BEARD BLOG loves 300, specifically King Leonidas (and his painfully beautiful beard) so there’s a pretty good chance that 300 is the greatest movie in the history of time.
@MAN BEARD BLOG: Isn’t the “man” part slightly redundant? I don’t know too many women with beards..
MAN BEARD? maybe. SPARTAN BEARD? hardly. Too much mustache for a Spartan.
If you’re looking for historical accuracy, stay far, far away from 300.
However, the movie is very entertaining, if you’re into ultra-violent action movies. If not, you’ll hate it.
I was raised on comic books and horror films, so bloody action flicks will always find a soft spot in my heart.
I’ve never worried much about the blood– my daughter and I LOVED Kill Bill– but upon seeing the trailer to 300, my first thought was: “Huh! Now they’re making live action movies that look like CGI.”
There’s this gem from a review in the Village Voice:
FWIW, I hate ultra-violent action movies, but I didn’t hate this one. I liked the stylized, comic-book feel. And some of it was just funny.
PZ, I’m a big fan of yours, but you actually are making yourself look like a wet blanket with this one. You didn’t like 300 because it wasn’t historically accurate? That’s like saying you didn’t like Sin City because it wasn’t anatomically acurate; people can’t take so much punishment and live. Well, yeah, that’s the point. It wasn’t meant to be historically accurate. The point is that it is meant to be surreal and over-the-top. Take it for what it is.
By the way, I liked the movie but didn’t love it.
From Waldrop & Person:
There have never been dire wolves (Canis dirus outside of America. Showing one in Greece makes no more sense than a ground sloth.
From Waldrop & Person:
There have never been dire wolves (Canis dirus outside of America. Showing one in Greece makes no more sense than a ground sloth.
Ah, me again, too stupid to close parentheses…
Ah, me again, too stupid to close parentheses…
I don’t get the complaints about historicity. I haven’t seen the movie or read the comic, but I can tell just from the 30-second commercials that it’s not even pretending to be historically accurate. Why not take it on its own terms?
Like I said, the Waldrop and Person review reflects what I would probably think of it — and it does take it on its own terms, while pointing out that the history is bogus.
And yeah, if it comes to Morris, I’d go see it. It looks like a real popcorn movie.
I myself like to go in for a spot of the old ultraviolence now and again.
I can’t wait for Grindhouse. Rose McGowan with a prosthetic assault-rifle leg. Yum.
Good lord, anybody who looks to Frank Miller for Merchant-Ivory period authenticity is, as it were, barking up the wrong tree, if not simply barking.
That’s like viewing a production of the Ring cycle and complaining that Attila the Hun and his contemporaries would never have sung so much, let alone in that language.
Will do! It was boring, disturbing, and offensive. First, in terms of the fetishization of blood and gore, it was essentially The Passion of the Christ with Persians instead of Jesus. Every spear-thrust, blood spurt, and even punch with the fist was in adoring slow-mo close-up, shown with approximately the same intense fawningness as jism shots in porn. Except for two hours on end. Next, the fiendhood of the Persians was communicated with Coulter-esque smears at their sexuality; Xerxes was a giant drag queen carried onto the field of battle on an absolutely fabulous clamshell, and the idea that his camp is a den of iniquity is communicated by hot lesbians making out and then leering ominously at the camera.
That’s the offensive part. Then, there’s the annoyingness of never knowing what mode of realism the film is going to settle down in. Nothing’s really supernatural at first, and then all of a sudden there’s LOTR-style giant elephants, a fat guy with swords for arms, and a goat-person playing the flute. It never decides whether it wants to be loose history or complete fantasy. And the elements that it uses to toe this line are shamelessly derivative: the oliphaunts, and earlier, the wolf the young Leonidas has to fight is pretty much a warg.
And even ignoring all that, we can never feel anything for the Spartans, because all Leonidas ever gives as a justification for the importance of this adventure is the assertion that they’re defending freedom and democracy, but we never see any particular evidence of it. In fact, Sparta looks to be a damn unfree place, what with boys being dragged away from their mothers at age seven and thrown to the wolves (wargs?) and all. Instead they seem to be fighting unquestioningly for platitudes and lies–which is disturbing, given current political context.
So yes, it fails on its own merits too.
There are more interesting bad movies. Some of them might have footage from Star Wars, music from some Indiana Jones movie and subtitles and discussions on Islam to make you feel intellectual. Some of these might even be available online for free. http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/turkish_star_wars.htm
“I don’t know too many women with beards.”
You obviously don’t work where I work.
OEJ
And the elements that it uses to toe this line are shamelessly derivative: the oliphaunts, and earlier, the wolf the young Leonidas has to fight is pretty much a warg.
Right, because everybody knows that wargs and battle-elephants and elves and dwarves and shit only exist because Tolkein made them up, and there’s never been any influences on the “fantasy” genre before or since.
Seriously. Anybody who would accuse this movie of “not knowing if it’s fantasy or reality” doesn’t know anything about fantasy. And “no supernatural stuff at the beginning”? What? Did you miss the oracle? The one who was floating in space?
I found the movie an amazing visual spectacle. Visual battle poetry. I guess you can criticize it for being something it’s not and was never intended to be, but for my money, that was the most fun I’d had at a movie in years.
Haven’t seen 300, so no comment on that, but as for the post title, I feel obligated to point people towards the agony booth.
I would say that Andrew Sullivan’s reader was probably right when he called 300 the gayest movie he’d ever seen that wasn’t porn; oiled men running around in speedos and capes?
Granted that comic books play a dominant role in American deliberations on military and foreign policy, we should monitor this stuff carefully.
The Persians are shown as pansies in in an attempt to goad the Iranian government into overreaction. (Though perhaps this was just meant to be used as a recruiting tool in the US). The Spartans are shown as leather boys in order to get Andrew Sullivan back on the pro-war bandwagon. The Spartans are shown as heroic underdogs fighting a defensive battle,in order to make the Little Green Footballs crowd all warm inside, because that’s what they think they are.
I would say that Andrew Sullivan’s reader needs to watch Gayniggers from Outer Space.
I’m sort of pleased that my browser shows a lone “Advertisement” floating above the post header on the main page, while the content is far from positive.
What can I say, I’m easily amused. So perhaps I will see this one – it could have made worse than having Frank Miller as inspiration. ‘Kitsch’ is a personal warning sign, though.
I’m sort of pleased that my browser shows a lone “Advertisement” floating above the post header on the main page, while the content is far from positive.
What can I say, I’m easily amused. So perhaps I will see this one – it could have made worse than having Frank Miller as inspiration. ‘Kitsch’ is a personal warning sign, though.
I’m a middle-aged woman who happens to love action/adventure movies and doesn’t have a big problem with violence in context (loved GLADIATOR, which I’d never claim is even remotely historically accurate.) My husband and I are also SF/fantasy fans, enjoy comic books, and enjoy just about anything historical.
We went to see 300 on its opening Saturday. Both of us thought the movie pretty laughable. The dialogue had us in stitches. It was so incredibly self-important. The Persians were so over the top, so FAR from historical accuracy, that they became an ongoing joke. I did enjoy some of the initial fight scenes, but that rapidly began to pall. What probably made a very nice graphic novel became a parody on the screen.
The majority of the audience we saw the movie with were teen and 20-something men with their girlfriends. We may have been the only middle-aged people in the place. The rest of the audience applauded while we rolled our eyes.
We loved KILL BILL, however, so we don’t fit the old fogie stereotypes. We just found 300 to be pretty dismal overall.
I have no interest in this movie. It just looks so gray and the CGI from the trailer looked too twitchy. The awfulness of “Silent Hill” is just too fresh in my mind to want to deal with another overly violent movie that prefers CGI to plot or anything particularly interesting.
Zero, maybe there is a goat beard blog but that would be a whole other kettle of fish! ;^)
I love how so many people need to preface their opinions with “I like action movies/blood and gore” and then go on to talk about how bad the movie was. It’s like trying to setup some kind of false authority when all that is being offered afterwards is opinion. Those opinions may be valid, but they are valid regardless of prestated preferances.
I thought the movie was great, it was exactly what I was expecting, and I think far too many people are trying to read more into it than there was. The movies qualities were entirely visual, but they more than carried the story through.
“And even ignoring all that, we can never feel anything for the Spartans, because all Leonidas ever gives as a justification for the importance of this adventure is the assertion that they’re defending freedom and democracy, but we never see any particular evidence of it. In fact, Sparta looks to be a damn unfree place, what with boys being dragged away from their mothers at age seven and thrown to the wolves (wargs?) and all.”
It’s called the agoge and was standard life for native Spartan men. Defending your virtues, to you, must mean that they’re never in danger and no one should be in the city-state army to protect those virtues if they were ever questioned or threatened. The agoge was in place since Lycurgus ruled the tribes in Sparta and was in place to make sure only the most fit-for-battle children were put into the rank and file of the Spartan army.
I’m going to miss HBO’s ‘Rome’ when it comes to an end next week.
Not completely historically accurate (though several orders more accurate than 300 it seems like).
Rome could have been a great allegory of our times, but it seems that Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar were a great deal smarter than our present leaders.
Just based on the trailer, I’m rooting for the Persians.
That looks like an horrendously bad movie.
Maybe I am missing the point of this discourse (it wouldn’t be the first time). Aren’t movies supposed to be about ENTERTAINMENT? What is entertaining to me might not be entertaining to someone else. That’s why the movie makers give us a choice. You can see action flicks, dramas, documentaries, etc. Not all of them good, but it depends on what yardstick you want to measure them by – your own or someone else’s. I don’t recall the “300” being touted as a documentary on the battle of Thermoplyae. What I saw when I watched “300” was 2 hours of yummy eye candy (oiled men in leather acting heroically) and a decent story. For 2 hours I forgot about all the bad crap in the world. Isn’t that what entertainment is about?
How does that contadict the assertion that the children and mothers subjected to this treatment were, to that extent, unfree?
As for the “fantasy” elements in the story, the huge beasts, the disfigured giants and the very tall Xerxes. One justification would be to take careful note of the narration. It is the one survivor of the battle sent back to “tell their story” in order to rally the troops for the REAL defense of Greece from Persian conquest. What we see is not “documentary”, but instead his description of the last stand obviously embellished in much the same way the story of Odysseus’s return from Troy was embellished with fantastical elements. That is, his narration is not meant to be an overlay of the “actual” events. The film is to be the what the Greeks saw in their mind’s eye listening to the story.
Seems like the people who didn’t like it couldn’t suspend quite enough disbelief, considering all the references to how historically inaccurate it was in the comments so far. But if you can, it’s one heck of a ride. Also, the heavy metal soundtrack worked quite well.
Sure, it makes fabulous racist, homophobic, etc. propaganda. Sure, if you listen closely in the theater, you can hear the sound of a thousand conservatives fapping as they imagine that they’d have lasted five minutes in ancient Sparta. But it’s got more spectacle than you can shake a blood-drenched spear at, and it’s utterly lacking in self-conscious irony, which is something we don’t get at the movies nearly often enough.
Well, sure. But I meant to imply that the look and effect of those elements in this particular film reminded me most strongly of Peter Jackson’s imagery in the recent LOTR films, with nothing significant added. But my sample size is limited. Were ginormous, fifty-foot-tall gargantuan elephants common in fantasy films before Jackson? (I guess AT-ATs count, sort of.)
Granted. But then we had Leonidas putting on a great show of dismissing all that old superstition. He even dismissed her as just a “drunk adolescent”–despite the fact that we did see her midair contortions. Hence the observation of the filmmakers’ intential obfuscation about the supernatural.
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I loved “300”! Every other war movie you ever saw was pop music. “300” was a symphony.
And it wasn’t all CGI. There was a lot of acting by real people.
As to the believability, the original event was so amazing, why not punch it up cinematically into blatant fantasy?
As to the “the gayest movie he’d ever seen that wasn’t porn,” I saw a documentary on the Spartans later the same day I saw the movie, and the narrator pointed out that homosexuality in the Spartan army was MANDATORY. So … ahem. Maybe the director’s motivation, whatever it was, accidentally struck the right historic chord.
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I’ve often thought that my movie-watching mindset is different from the majority of adults. I’m always amazed at how people rip up movies that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
I have this wild idea that we carry within us all our previous ages, the people we were in those various eras of life. So: Inside me is a 5-year-old, and a 12-year-old, a 15-year-old, a 28-year-old, etc.
I have the wilder idea that some sort of comfort within oneself (maturity?) is achieved, partly, by embracing and accepting all those younger selves. I’m PROUD of my 5-year-old, I LIKE my 12-year-old, I CHERISH my 15-year-old … and on and on.
Some of the MEMORIES of events from those times are embarrassing, but the person that I was is still eminently acceptable to me. He was a good kid, that guy I used to be, and used to be, and used to be, and I’m glad I got to know him. He tried hard, he never quit learning, he was at the same time painfully shy and truly adventurous, he tried to be a good friend to his friends, and he found fun in every part of life.
I think most of us grow up into whoever we are and just stay there. Maybe there’s good reason – the demands of each particular age are strongly reinforced by the people around us – but I wonder if we’re not shortchanging ourselves by listening to those others TOO much.
I have noticed certain older people find that they can be youthfully frivolous and be unbothered by onlooker reactions. Despite the expectations of the people around them that they be “old” – reserved and respectable – they insist on dancing, hiking, riding grocery carts like skateboards, crying at soppy movies, laughing out loud in quiet places, launching into spontaneous love affairs.
I approach movie-watching pretty much from this frame of reference. I like fantasies, animation, action-adventure, chick flicks, etc., and I have no problem buying into the basic premise of each movie. (Yeah, they can sometimes be tedious or manipulative – if I never see another Sylvester Stallone movie, for instance, it will be too soon. And Kevin Costner, about half the time, really and truly can’t act worth shit. I definitely don’t like tragedies – I always say “I get real life shoved in my face every day; when I go to a movie, I want fuzzy bunnies, larger-than-life heroes, and happy endings!”)
“300” was about heroism, and violence, and glorious visual images, and only last of all about history. As to the “glorious visual images,” some of them were so lovingly and elaborately crafted they were stunning. The scene of the female oracle dancing was so beautiful I wish I could have it on my wall. And all those slow-motion fight sequences … say what you will about the bloody real nature of the actual event, this was ART.
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Hank, not that it matters now (and I intend no slight to Blake Stacey, my original nominee who is still quite worthy) that post makes me wish I had nominated you for the Molly.
The real shame of “300” is that it arrives long after Mystery Science Theater 3000 is gone. They were made for each other.
But I’m sorry, conspiracy theories don’t wash here. “We should monitor”? Who is this “we” and what are we “monitoring”? Miller’s comic dates back nearly a decade, so start your conspiracy theory in 1998. (Well, really, start the conspiracy theory in 480 BCE, back when the battle occured.) Me, I’d rather watch the watchmen.
Why do these reviews have to use video games as a shorthand for shallow? It’s one thing to compare the look to a video game, but it seems like lack of cultural awareness for someone to think these days that video games can’t be meaningful, intellectual, or moving.
Neal Stephenson makes a good point about this movie as well – that it’s a sort of science fiction set in the past, an imaginative look at an alien culture. Maybe not particularly good scifi, but it’s a better way to interpret the movie than as an historical epic.
um, there was NO supernatural content in 300 whatsoever.
The oracle was NOT floating, she was dancing and they were showing what she would look like to those who were viewing her under the influence of the few fumes.
The guy with swords for arms was pretty clearly mutilated and altered. You could see where the blades were tied on to this forearms.
The goat head was a mask…
Of course the movie wasn’t historically accurate. It’s a MOVIE. For entertainment.
It was visually stunning and the most fun movie I’ve seen in a while…
Meh, I’ll have to wait for 4th of April for the Swedish release. Perhaps April 1st would have been more fitting but I’ll definitely see it – it sounds entertaining whether I’ll like it or not.
Gotta love the FAQ of this movie at IMDB:
“Were the Persians portrayed accurately?”
Hmm… tough one…
First, I take History seriously enough to research and write it.
Second, my wife, my 18-year-old son, and I all enjoyed “The 300” very much when we saw it on the Universal City IMAX.
That would be the way for the rest of you to see it, if the reviews haven’t dissuaded you. It is the future of movies, or at
least A future of movies.
The director, Zack Snyder, lives in Pasadena, less than 5 miles from me. He’s said that he was, essentially, making a movie of the Frank Miller graphic novel which Frank Miller said was based on his
childhood memories of the 1962 Sir Ralph Richardson version.
This is one of the rare cases of a translation of a translation of a
translation being as great or greater than the original.
The sword, axe, spear, and shieldwork is (to my amateur eyes) astonishing, and my son (professional trained sword fighter) was equally ecstatic.
Filmed entirely (except for a galloping horses sequence) in a Montreal warehouse, live action greenscreen/bluescreen shotting within 60 days total; a year os postproduction by a graphics software genius.
The review damned with faint praise, saying a good film but not a great film. That’s because it breaks the paradigm. It is one of the defining great films of the new approach, which is very cost-effective
and scares the pants off the traditional studios.
The others of the new style being “Sin City” also a Frank Miller graphic novel
adapation beyond gory, and what Pixar would do if they wanted to make something that children should NOT see.
I like bad movie reviews as much as trhe next guy. More, actually, because there are so many film reviews on my web domain, which is in its 12th year, and getting 15,000,000+ hits per year.
For my film data, start at:
http://www.magicdragon.com/movies-index.html
Thank you! That actually clarifies things, although I still contend that the narration was intentionally obfuscatory on this point–probably for the “unreliable narrator” reasons pointed out by SteveM. Whether you like that style is a matter of taste.
According to the Grauniad, the film’s all about the underpants.
Bob
@MAN BEARD BLOG: Isn’t the “man” part slightly redundant? I don’t know too many women with beards.
Posted by: Zero
There is nothing even the slightest tiny little bit redundant about MAN BEARD BLOG.
“I don’t know too many women with beards.”
You obviously don’t work where I work.
OEJ
Posted by: Oney Eyed Jack
MAN BEARD BLOG would like to know where you work and perhaps come study your Female Beards.
I expect movies to be historically inaccurate. How a movie is historical inaccurate may be interesting, however. The Greek version of what happened at Thermopylae, as reported by the Herodotus, already contains plenty of legendary material; but one thing it doesn’t imply is that the struggle was a battle of good versus evil. Herodotus has a lot of respect for the Persians; and, if he gives Xerxes a bad review, it’s largely because the king didn’t act according to the values of his own people. For example, the Persians always respected valor, so it was shameful and shocking that Xerxes mistreated the corpse of King Leonides.
Everything in American movies becomes a struggle of good guys versus bad guys because our demotic ethic is very far away from the essentially aristocratic outlook of classical antiquity. Vilifying your enemy, the first thing that our politicians do at the outset of every international quarrel,is distasteful to people whose instinct is to respect their opponents–in the Iliad, both the Achaians and the Trojans are noble. The only villains are the low-born wretches that turn up on either side from time to time. Ironically, far from discounting the worthiness of the Persians, Xenophon, the most pro-Spartan of Athenian historians, actually wrote a favorable book about the Persians. The demonization of the Iranians that began a good century and a half after Thermopylae was a gradual process that reflected the decay of classic values.
The supreme irony is that the world view that would eventually triumph in the victory of Christianity over paganism was rooted in Iranians religion–the Jews acquired their moral dualism and the notion of history as a war between God and the Devil from Iran and the Christians inherited their dualistic tendencies from the Jews. Which is part of the reason why umpteen years later, a movie about the war between the West and the East would represent the conflict as a fight between light and darkness.
Extra credit irony: 300 apparently represents the Persians as swarthy mud people yet nobody is as Aryan as a Persian. Iran literally means Land of the Ayrans.
The prospect of drunken men wearing skimpy leather thongs while sporting six-pack beer guts yelling “Spartans! Tonight we dine in hell!” in bad Scottish accents dating back to Braveheart at the renfest now is reason enough for me to pan 300.
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Jakanapes said:
I felt that way too. I wouldn’t be surprised if, twenty years from now, it was widely known that THIS was the movie that kicked open the door into an entirely new era of filmmaking.
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Mildly OT, but if you like reviews of bad movies, I highly recommend I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, a collection of Roger Ebert’s most scathing reviews. Regardless of what you think of his taste in movies, he’s at his best when ripping them to shreds.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, twenty years from now, it was widely known that THIS was the movie that kicked open the door into an entirely new era of filmmaking.
Why 300 and not Sin City?
Heck, why not Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow?
I don’t think that I’d like an action movie if I ever saw one, but that’s OK because I haven’t seen 300 either.
I don’t think that it’s irrelevant that we have a homophobic Victor Davis Hansen fantasy snuff film coming out right when our President is deciding whether to bomb Iran (= Persia). If that makes me a killjoy, OK. Apparently the right to enjoy shit movies without shame trumps everything.
If you like checking out funny reviews of bad movies, Rottentomatoes.com recently came out with their “top 100 worst movies of all time” list.
scroll through that, pick a movie, and then check out the reviews.
there’s some very entertaining stuff in there.
I think 300 will be Red Dawn for Gen Y.
I’m reminded of the great sage John Stewarts reply to charges of anti-persian propaganda in 300:
“The Persians are portrayed as an infinite, unstoppable killing force! What the fuck’s wrong with you?!!”
(paraphrased)
Re: ‘300,’ ‘Sin City,’ ‘Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’: There is one true precursor:
Tron!
Well, I’ve been a long-time fan of Frank Miller. I think he aspires to the helm of Tim Burton in the graphic novel genre. Clearly, ‘Sin City’ is his personal take on the film noir, & while I haven’t seen the movie, I’m guessing he’s extending that dark vision to a semi-historical event.
I loved the graphic novel. It’s simply good story telling, & the narrator (as someone pointed out prior) is actually an experienced ‘minstrel’ of sorts, who’s spared the final battle to spread the word, as he has the gift of language.
I’m usually a bear (or curmudgeon, as it were) when it comes to non-historical films: I utterly loathed the docudrama Nero (which devolved into a commercial for xtianity) & the remake of Hercules (who became a humanistic spokesman, denouncing the gods, even though he was a son of 1), & had some real problems w/the retrofit(s) they did on Troy – but in the end, if a movie (or in this case, the book) succeeds well in the effort to entertain, I can be somewhat forgiving.
I always say – read the book, THEN go see the movie.
In the year 2007 CE insufficient enthusiasm for blood sport still marked you as a pussy; or worse, a snob.
I thought the movie was visually appealing. Some of the scenes were simply gorgeous. ‘course, that the Spartans foughts in leather Speedos and oversized red blankets seemed, well, *stupid*, but they were very pretty. And yes, I rolled my eyes many times in the movie, including the “freedom is not free” (I’m surprised the military recruiters weren’t waiting for me as I left the theatre), and that slo mo phalanx of nearly naked men purposely walking towards the camera, long red cloaks billowing behind them–but look at those cobblestone abs!
The whole movie was a nipple-pec fest.
I loved those cloaks, though. I imagined the men tripping over them and getting entangled in them during battle, getting yanked back because some oaf stepped on their cloak …
The History Channel documentary on the 300 was far more interesting.
that slo mo phalanx of nearly naked men purposely walking towards the camera, long red cloaks billowing behind them
Funny that that example didn’t show up in Edna Mode’s caution on Superheroes wearing cloaks ….
All these people who say the fighting is “ART”… I don’t get it. You want to see how to fight? Go watch Django. Yes, I am serious.
Clare is right on the other issue. Someone in the production had not watched the right movies.
All these people who say the fighting is “ART”… I don’t get it. You want to see how to fight? Go watch Django. Yes, I am serious.
Clare is right on the other issue. Someone in the production had not watched the right movies.
Local sports talk hosts were having great fun with “300.” They liked it, while also saying it should have been entitled “Man Ass.”
I probably won’t be seeing 300. I’ve read the comic, and I’m tired of Frank Miller reassuring himself that he is a manly, manly, well-endowed manly man. (And straight! Manly and straight!) Apparently Sin City didn’t convince him of that thoroughly enough.
It makes me a little sad that I can’t really enjoy Miller’s work any more, because Batman: Year One is a stunningly good book, but he’s descended into self-parody over the last fifteen years or so. Of course, I have girl cooties, so I don’t this he’ll miss me as a reader.
I’ll second the recommendation to Neal Stephenson’s review. It’s at The NYTimes and goes by the delightful title “It’s All Geek to Me.” Stephenson’s take is pretty subtle; without glossing over the movie’s shortcomings he still manages to take the negative reviewers to task for missing the point so utterly. I have to say that I’m likely to agree with him when I see it. I’m also a Miller fan and read the graphic novel when it came out. I’m also a historian and don’t take kindly to those who do poor history, but I have a great deal of patience for those who use history only as starting material for a good story, which is Miller to the core. Essentially, he takes the most outrageous aspects of Herodotus, mixes in the magial thinking of the ancient world and pulls out a fanatsy about as accurate to historical fact as the Illiad, but no less entertaining. Stephenson’s other point about reading current politics into the film is also well made. He notes that the thinking person might well ask, if you’re trying to stuff this film into the mold of political allegory, just who exactly the Persians and Spartans are representing; after all, as he notes, it was the Persians who were invading someone else’s country.
Well, you haven’t seen it, so calling it a “shit movie” is kind of odd. John. It certainly doesn’t create the impression that you research things you have an opinion on, which in turn doesn’t help your credibility on the rest of your conspiracy theory much.
I have to say, I thought the special effects, sound processing, and CGI work sucked. Far more of a distraction than an enhancement. The color palette was carefully chosen to ape a dull, drab comic book. The stupid Matrixy slo-mo effects made no sense at all. Every swipe of a sword flung more blood across the screen than exists in a human being. I know the dialogue to most movies today is recording and synched in a recording studio after the movie is edited because wild sound isn’t reliable, but I thought the synching in particular was poorly done. The CGI was so inattentive that people’s bodies changed shape between closeups, medium shots, and distance shots. “300” would’ve been far better had it just been a ’50s-style gladiator flick. If “300” is the future of movies, we can expect videogames to continue to overtake movies as America’s most popular entertainment medium.
Bob S.: I admire your brilliance in spotting a damning fact I carefully hid in my first sentence.
This could be a good movie on its own terms, though I still wouldn’t like it, but it surprises me to find that even here no one here cares about the blatant, nasty, and timely anti-Persian slant this movie has. In the context of the actual American audience, it could be a military recruiting film.
I’m not sure it’s actually an “American” movie. Who produced it?
Anti Persian? It’s a frickin’ movie… someone has to be the bad guys.
As I hear it the Spartans aren’t exactly guys you would want to hang
around with either.
I remain amazed. Based on what people have been saying, this sure sounds like a creepy right-wing war fantasy movie. Lots of the militaristic jerks I’ve known took this kind of stuff seriously.
This kind of spectacle for spectacle’s sake is pretty common in comics. It’s a genre that is slowly creeping into film. If the historical inaccuracy bothers you, just mentally replace spartan and persian with, I don’t known, Xenu and flibbertigibbet. The movie doesn’t much care, because the movie isn’t much about actual spartans or persians.
Miller is famous in comics for his complete distaste for heroes. If you insist on viewing 300 looking for heroes and villains, you will find it extremely distasteful yourself. You’re better off thinking in terms of protagonist and antagonist, where the protagonist is the actor and the antagonist is the reactor. The persians are protagonists (in comics, the villains are usually the protagonists – the heroes just stand around waiting for something to happen) because they are invading, and the Greeks are the antagonists, because they are defending. Whose point of view the story happens to be from is just a stylistic choice.
Miller has said that he has become more patriotic since 9/11, so maybe the movie is more political than the comic. Dark Knight Strikes Back was definitely more political than Dark Knight Returns. Still, I think you’re all taking it way too seriously. I won’t dismiss it by saying “It’s just a movie,” but I will dismiss it by saying “It’s just Frank Miller.”
Xenu can go hang, but I won’t have you stereotyping and belittling the Flibbertigibbets.
“but I thought the synching in particular was poorly done.”
The only part of the movie I’ve seen thus far is “Tonight we dine in Hell” (don’t know what that means) on this little joke flash cartoon, and I thought the synching was awful, but I figured it was the fault of whoever made the flash. Was it really that bad in the movie?
And there’s the reason I won’t go see it. The actual Spartans were interesting. It’s not the warrior ethos, it’s their total commitment to it that is astonishing. To ignore the culture, and make a movie literally about blood and sandals, shows a complete lack of imagination.
Wow. Apikoros, please forgive me if I find your opinion on this matter to be totally worthless. For all his faults, the one thing I have never heard anyone accuse Frank Miller of is a complete lack of imagination. While somebody who judges a movie by what it’s not about while simultaneously offering a reductionist description of its contents before he’s even seen it might think that he can recognize a lack of imagination, I assure you in this case you are mistaken.
For the record, the movie is about blood and thongs. Way more imaginative than sandals.
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