300: The I Haven't Read the Comic Review
Written by Matt Cohick
Published on 03/19/2007
Originally from Binary Culture / [the-lowdown.net]
http://www.binaryculture.net

Disclaimer: This reviewer did not read "300" first, thus this review is from the perspective of a movie goer, not a guy who spent 4 movie tickets worth of money to get the '300' graphic novel and tries to search google on the video codec to play .bin files.

Cinema: a mostly disappointing medium where many aspiring directors attempt to make a singular piece of storytelling yet fail due to not having what it takes.

Film makers: a mostly sorry lot that go through intense criticism and venture to film festivals trying to outbest each other. Once a film maker comes of age, he ventures out into the wilderness and uses his skills and mastery to create a single cohesive product.

Zach Snyder directed a bunch of Morrissey videos before venturing out to create Dawn of the Dead as his return from the wilderness. Directors are not often remembered for initial mainstream successes, but remembered for one act that stood strong against opposition from elderly and obsessed studio execs, using unmarketed leads, and risky market trends to great success. One such exec might of thought that an R Rated film with high eight figure budget and non bankable leads in the sandal and swords genre is a fatal risk. So too did the various Greek politicians who thought 300 Spartans leading 6,000 volunteers against the Persian Empire would be a crime against the gods during a holiday.

To Zach Snyder's advantage, 300 is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel by the same name. Like most of Frank Miller's work, it's a story of manhood, violence, passion, honor, and sacrifice for freedom and justice, often for concepts of freedom and justice that the establishment abhores or misunderstands. In a sea of disappointing antiquity epics that often have phoned in performances, airline and broadcast safe violence, generic scores, and nonimersive scenery 300 uses the themes, characterizations, and violence used in the other film adaptation of Miller's comic book work Frank Miller's Sin City.

Like Sin City, 300 is shown from a stylized lens that emphasizes muscles, deformity, the hot sun, the cruel night, the boldness of flesh and blood, eyes of meaning, and motivated souls. The cast behind 300 may not be as star studded as Sin City, yet due to the director's skill and producer's dedication to the world behind Miller's vision of the Battle of Thermopilaye; the actors become the characters instead of the usual Hollywood trend of the characters becoming the actors.

300, has all the necessities of a great Greek tragedy; dismemberment, brotherhood, a journey with impossible odds, lust, wildly imagined foils and opponents, and a tale of inspiration to overcome of the odds of a previous storyteller. 300 somehow makes the aspect of mythical enemies to be semi-realistic men who are resigned to submitting themselves to an unrelenting Sun (ofabitch) King, Xerxes, (Rodrigo Santoro of Lost) to compensate for their mutations.

Unlike the Spartans and their Greek volunteer soldier comrades, the forces of Xerxes consist of slave warriors from various parts of Asia who are willing to die for the glory of Xerxes and his empire, in return for his mercy and kindness. If the credits are accurate, King Xerxes must have had the greatest medical minds of his time to have had transexual harem girls complete with breasts. Like the ones Marilyn Manson had on the cover of Mechanical Animals.

Seeing 300 in a packed audience, the movie isn't recommended for people who have to ask twenty one questions to figure out what is going on before it happens, instead, 300 is for those who enjoy great stories, likes his and/or her (I noticed female film goers enjoyed Lena Headly as Queen Gorgo and Queen Gorgo is the closest heroine to a Beatrix Kiddo in recent memory) movies raw, loud, and intense, and enjoy a self contained story. Like the 300 Spartans, 300 ends in glory and probably turns the tide on Western (as in European and American) film making. The future is bright for unabashed R-rated filmaking and the adult filmgoer will be thankful for it.

Driving to the movie theater, parking your car, paying inflated movie ticket prices, and having to deal with casual moviegoers is worth the price of admission to see 300 in it's theatrical run. Besides, the success of 300 will go a long way towards securing a decent budgent from Warner Brothers for Snyder's vision of Alan Moore's critically acclaimed graphic novel The Watchmen, particularily for the Mars sequence.