X
- 2007
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 57 m
- 2007
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 57 m
Summary Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is a retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, draw...
Directed By: Zack Snyder
- 2007
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 57 m
- 2007
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 57 m
300
52
7.5
Where to Watch
Summary Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is a retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, draw...
Directed By: Zack Snyder
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or average
Based on 42 Critic Reviews
52
45% Positive
19 Reviews
19 Reviews
38% Mixed
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
17% Negative
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or average
Based on 42 Critic Reviews
52
45% Positive
19 Reviews
19 Reviews
38% Mixed
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
17% Negative
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
We've seen plenty of sword-and-sandal epics, full of robustly virile men fighting like real men against other men. But we've never seen those hyper-macho mechanics presented with the brutal beauty and thrilling finesse of 300, clearly the best film of 2007 so far.
It's impossible not to be moved by its nearly nonstop visual assault.
User Score
Generally favorable
Based on 1,017 User Ratings
7.5
75% Positive
758 Ratings
758 Ratings
15% Mixed
154 Ratings
154 Ratings
10% Negative
105 Ratings
105 Ratings
User Score
Generally favorable
Based on 1,017 User Ratings
7.5
75% Positive
758 Ratings
758 Ratings
15% Mixed
154 Ratings
154 Ratings
10% Negative
105 Ratings
105 Ratings
In epic battle scenes where he combines breathtaking and fluid choreography, gorgeous 3-D drawings and hundreds of visual effects, director Zack Snyder puts onscreen the seemingly impossible heroism and gore of which Homer sang in "The Iliad."
There's no denying that 300 has its viscerally charged moments, but it would be a lot more fun if it didn't take itself quite so seriously. You don't get to be pretentious when you've populated your film with androgynous kings, lesbian concubines and giant elephants. [9 March 2007, p.4]
That it's so flat as an action movie probably has a lot to do with why people might prefer to jawbone over its putatively controversial aspects--there's really not much of a “wow” factor to revel in.
300 will be talked about as a technical achievement, the next blip on the increasingly blurry line between movies and video games.
It's a ponderous, plodding, visually dull picture, but the blame shouldn't be put on Snyder's skills per se, and has nothing to do with his ambition to blur the distinction between CGI and photography. Frankly, it's the slavish, frame-by-frame devotion to Miller's source material that's the problem.
If you prefer style and not realism, then maybe this movie is for you. I dont, so I didnt enjoy all the overstylish pictures and scenes.
The story is of course not very intelligent, but not very bad. It is simple and has logical mistakes. The dialogues are also simple.
The movie lives also from the action and violence and yes they are good.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid. Adapted from a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, it offers up a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s. The basic story is a good deal older. It’s all about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, which unfolded at a narrow pass on the coast of Greece whose name translates as Hot Gates.
Hot Gates, indeed! Devotees of the pectoral, deltoid and other fine muscle groups will find much to savor as King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads 300 prime Spartan porterhouses into battle against Persian forces commanded by Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), a decadent self-proclaimed deity who wants, as all good movie villains do, to rule the world.
The Persians, pioneers in the art of facial piercing, have vastly greater numbers — including ninjas, dervishes, elephants, a charging rhino and an angry bald giant — but the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities. They also hew to a warrior ethic of valor and freedom that makes them, despite their gleeful appetite for killing, the good guys in this tale. (It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white.)
But not all the Spartans back in Sparta support their king on his mission. A gaggle of sickly, corrupt priests, bought off by the Persians, consult an oracular exotic dancer whose topless gyrations lead to a warning against going to war. And the local council is full of appeasers and traitors, chief among them a sardonic, shifty-eyed smoothy named Theron (Dominic West, known to fans of “The Wire” as the irrepressible McNulty).
Too cowardly to challenge Leonidas man to man, he fixes his attention on Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), a loyal wife and Spartan patriot who fights the good fight on the home front. Gorgo understands her husband’s noble purpose, the higher cause for which he is willing to sacrifice his life. “Come home with your shield or on it,” she tells him as he heads off into battle after a night of somber marital whoopee. Later she observes that “freedom is not free.”
Another movie — Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s “Team America,” whose wooden puppets were more compelling actors than most of the cast of “300” — calculated the cost at $1.05. I would happily pay a nickel less, in quarters or arcade tokens, for a vigorous 10-minute session with the video game that “300” aspires to become. Its digitally tricked-up color scheme, while impressive at times, is hard to tolerate for nearly two hours (true masochists can seek out the Imax version), and the hectic battle scenes would be much more exciting in the first person. I want to chop up some Persians too!
There are a few combat sequences that achieve a grim, brutal grandeur, notably an early engagement in which the Spartans, hunkered behind their shields, push back against a Persian line, forcing enemy soldiers off a cliff into the water. The big idea, spelled out over and over in voice-over and dialogue in case the action is too subtle, is that the free, manly men of Sparta fight harder and more valiantly than the enslaved masses under Xerxes’ command. Allegory hunters will find some gristly morsels of topicality tossed in their direction, but you can find many of the same themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon.
Zack Snyder’s first film, a remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” showed wit as well as technical dexterity. While some of that filmmaking acumen is evident here, the script for “300,” which he wrote with Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon, is weighed down by the lumbering portentousness of the original book, whose arresting images are themselves undermined by the kind of pomposity that frequently mistakes itself for genius.
In time, “300” may find its cultural niche as an object of camp derision, like the sword-and-sandals epics of an earlier, pre-computer-generated-imagery age. At present, though, its muscle-bound, grunting self-seriousness is more tiresome than entertaining. Go tell the Spartans, whoever they are, to stay home and watch wrestling.
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Production Company
Warner Bros.,
Legendary Entertainment,
Virtual Studios,
Hollywood Gang Productions,
Atmosphere Entertainment MM,
Mel's Cite du Cinema,
Nimar Studios
Release Date Mar 9, 2007
Duration 1 h 57 m
Rating R
Tagline Feel the wrath in IMAX
Awards
Golden Schmoes Awards
• 2 Wins & 13 Nominations
Scream Awards
• 2 Wins & 12 Nominations
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 2 Wins & 12 Nominations
