The visuals are nothing like I've seen before. The story has been toned down for everyone to take hold of things, even a total History imbecile would understand it. The slow motion effects sucked though. Still, a major blockbuster. Unfortunately, we all know that in every blockbuster, a myriad of nose-flaring haters would constantly pan it from behind.
It was a real treat for me to watch a comical style movie like this one. I think Butler is succeeded as King Leonidas, I like the story though. I guess 4 starts is good enough!
300 was easily one of the best movies of the year, it had tons of amazing action scenes as well as a great storyline. I really liked a lot of different parts in this movie and I hope that some director comes out with one similar sometime soon.
This movie was so much better than I expected... it's highly stylized, which I respect, and it's based on a graphic novel, which makes me like it all the more. Watching this on IMAX made me feel like I was watching testosterone on steroids... which is not necessarily a bad thing if you're into guys who look like they spend their every day at the gym. But kidding aside, my favorite parts were the beginning of the movie when they showed Leonidas training to the great warrior that he turned out to be, and then at the end, when his wife gave her powerful speech. Other than that, I liked that the gory scenes didn't make me gag due to the oh-so-glossy tones. On the other hand, the sensual stuff did make me throw up in my mouth a little bit; I had a hard time sitting through all that slow-mo writhing + voodoo freakout session.
Aweome Movie! Great special effects & battle sequences. The best war movie ive ever seen. Gerald butler played a great general. He kicked butt in this movie along with his spartans.
It's pretty, but that's about all it has going for it. Unlike Sin City, the story here is incredibly simple and linear. The look is epic, but it gets boring long before the end.
I worry about what Zack Snyder is doing to Watchmen. I'm not a huge Alan Moore fan, but it'd be nice to see a good adaptation.
Extremely poor adaptation of a great story, turning a heroic event into merely somebody killing somebody else fed to audience with the help of modern movie making techniques. No passion. No tears. Just colourful pictures.
Interesting..good cinematography, although somewhat historically inaccurate. Lame one-liners. Overall, a pretty good movie. I saw 300 in IMAX so it was truly visually stunning. The soundtrack is amazing too! The heavenly voice of Azam Ali from Vas is featured in some of the songs.
A film tech's dream. From colour correction to a series of after-effects, audiovisually, this is pure cinema. Frank Miller comics and Snyder's narrative choices are a little too fluffy and basic - but essentially this film succeeds in the exact ways you'd expect it to. War porn.
PS. Sin City 2, and a little bit of Lord of the Rings and a little bit of Hero.
'300' tells the tale of 300 Spartans in their last battle against an outrageous hoard of Persian soldiers led by a cruel and powerful lord who thinks he is a god.
Led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), the Spartans will not stop for anything or anyone. However there are those at home that miss them dearly.
This adaption from the Frank Miller graphic novels is in one word - cool.
Slightly camp and some very cheesey lines, this does not distract from brilliant fight scenes with some amazing characters they meet in battle.
Filmed on green screen, the effects are amazing.
There is no real story, except for the events back home, but the story is the least important part of the film,the fight scenes are.
Also starring Lena Headey, Dominic West and David Wenham, '300' is a typical 'lads' film that is very enjoyable to watch.
300 is visually stunning. While Gladiator tried to sell itself as history and at the same time use incredibly unrealistic effects. 300 uses its effects to set the scene and enhance the over the top action that is the soul of the movie.
Hmmm. Loud and hyperedited. The MTV crowd will absolutely eat it up. For the rest of us though? We are left with a film that is at times exhilerating and at times maddening.
The acting, for the most part, is surprisingly strong. Gerard Butler is totally credible as King Leonidas, commanding absolute respect on sight, and manages to deliver every single line, no matter how clunky, with utter conviction. He completely sells the role, and somehow never becomes abrasive, even when he screams. Michael Fassbender, in a small part, stands out. His humor is never out of place, and the dialogue flows naturally from him. Dominic West also turns in a very good performance, nuanced and textured, but seems to belong in another film. The rest of the cast is appropriate at worst, save for Lena Headley who lacks the cold, emotionless regality expected of a Spartan queen.
The film is poorly written. Yes, a lot of the dialogue is lifted directly from Frank Miller's novel, but much of it is taken out of context or slightly rewritten, so we end up with a series of one liners passing as conversation.
While the photography is often beautiful, like a moving oil painting, the film suffers from Sin City-itis. Since it was all created in cg, the enviroment never feels like a cohesive whole, rather like a seris of unconnected virtual sets. The effect is never distracting, but the lack of a true geographic feel is slightly troubling in a war film.
The action is violent, yes, and furious, but nothing we haven't seen before. Even the slow-motion "sustained" shots, of Leonidas et all shredding persian soldier upon persian soldier, while attractive, have been done before and better. I am reminded of the "knife" scene in V for Vendetta. Granted, these were more ambitious, but the former was a single sustained shot whereas these are a series of shots spliced together to present the illusion of one.
While I was not exactly disappointed with the film, I feel it either did not stick closely enough to the source material, or did not stray far enough from it. As it stands, it is clearly not a historical retelling but even as a presentation of the 'legend' it missed some key ingredients. I kept waiting for the Spartans to regather, three times, and go after Leonidas' body, as well as for Xerxes to dismember him, hang him up as a warning, but ultimately relent and return him to Sparta.
As it stands, the film is what it is: the MTV generation's Citizen Kane, a recopilation of money-shots. Shut off your brains, sit back and watch. It will work very well.
(review maintained, but one star demoted because, well, come on)
King Leonidas and a force of 300 men fight the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C..
Gerard Butler: King Leonidas
Violent, action-packed, maybe repetitive but visually stunning and imaginative like frank Millar's Novel. loosely based on real events. Truly immense and the scale is gigantic, so much violence it oozes with it.
Did get annoyed with David Wenham's narration a tad, loved the pure macho-ism in this. Gerard Butler as King Leonidas was absolutely one with the part he plays. He's such a remarkable versatile actor who plays such a strong lead. Lena Headley as Queen Gorgo also such a strong leading woman among such a male dominated cast yet shes formidable and a good enough actress to remain stand out. Michael Fassbender and Tom wisdom as Stelios and Astinos had good jokey lines and chemistry in the film. Andrew Tiernan as the hunchback Ephialties also has depth and meaning. The betrayer, the judas of the story who betrays because he's not accepted, because of his deformed weakness. Abandoned for this, cast away as is the Spartan way. Traitorous but still i can't help but feel sorry for him. Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes is so moulded into his character i didn't recognize it was him when i first saw this. He's so small in real life and on this he's like a 7ft god-like figure. Really looks woman-esque with all that shrapnel in his face and make up.
''This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this. I am not your Queen!''
Fans of ancient history and classical studies will find a lot to criticize because it's not an accurate depiction of ancient Greece but you should always make the legend according to John Ford . Unfortunately by concentrating on the visuals there's other aspects lacking . The Spartans don't really come across as real characters from ancient times , more of a crowd of wise cracking macho cyphers.
But despite these flaws this is a truly memorable movie down to the jaw dropping visuals and it's the visuals and music the film will be rightly remembered for. It's a pity that the Oscar voters ignored 300 because certainly make up , cinematography , editing and possibly best supporting actor for Andrew Tiernan as Ephialtes should have been nominated at least and this film will be highly regarded in years to come.
''You have many slaves, Xerxes, but few warriors. It won't be long before they fear my spears more than your whips.''
Parts I absolutely loved on 300 are numerous, including a love scene with Butler and Headley, utterly blossoming with passion, their last night of intimacy, for love, a bond persevered. This movie is more than an action movie for me. It's about love, camaraderie, the defending of what they love, of what they believe in. It's about the power not to give up but follow their destiny and to do what they think is the right thing to do. And it's also about the soul-mates, the King and the Queen.
Loved all the battle scenes and great lines:
''Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... For tonight, we dine in hell!'' or '' Give them NOTHING! Take from them EVERYTHING!''. ''They look thirsty, let's give them a drink!'', ''Feast hearty men for tonight we dine in HELL!'', I love the reversal here Queen Gorgo says to that black-hearted traitor Theron while skewering him,''This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this. I am not your Queen.'' The line I love the most and thats so lovely and makes me think of love eternal, ''My Queen! My wife. My love...'' It's so heart-felt and so loving and touches my soul, I cannot help but get emotional from that everytime.
The story was great and the part as you get to the ending credits and the sound is still roaring and pounding it gives you real surge. For me personally this movie is unique. It's a masterpiece of visual effects, colour, sounds, soundtrack and the absolutely stunning performance of the actors.
A graphic novel-to film masterpiece. Quality filming, take a bow everyone who made this possible.
''The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed.''
Since I first heard about this movie over a year ago while in production, I have been eagerly anticipating its release. As a military academy graduate, I have taken my share of military history courses, and am more familiar than most about the actual history. What Snyder and Miller have done is meld together the two major Persian invasions of Greece over two generations of father-son Persian emperors. It appears that the participation of several-thousand allies (from other Greek city-states) has been downplayed, and certainly the battle tactics and attire are not historically accurate. (The actual Spartans wore over half their body weight in armor, for example, and they always fought in tight formation with a limited repertoire of movements.) However, many of the quotes and situations portrayed in the film are historically accurate. The quote "then we will fight in the shade" is documented from historians of the time. The situation where the Athenians buried the messengers alive and the Spartans drowned them (not necessarily by throwing them in a well, however) has documentary evidence, although from the first invasion. The best summary of the movie comes from Gerard Butler's most recent interview, where he said that the movie is a participant's dream about it long after the fact - it is a dream-like memory of what the battle may have been like, in a highly stylized way. I will tell you this - historians of the era definitely characterized the battle as world-changing and in effect, preserved early-stage democracy. The historians make that very clear and are even more adamant about it than the movie itself. By the way, it is also appearing in IMAX on opening day, March 9th. I cannot wait for the political fallout to start, given the current world situation. After all, the Persians are modern day Iranians....
My opinion of this movie has changed over the last few months. I now see clearly that the battles weren't as amazing as I originally thought, the characters were as one dimensional as they can be, and I was left extremely unsatisfied with the ending. Yes, I know the Spartans had to die, but the way they did was totally weak in my opinion.
Now that all the negativity is out of the way, I did in fact enjoy 300. Everyone else here has already gushed about the visuals, so I'll just add that they are in fact as good as everyone says. Good dialogue that was pretty funny at times, and a few (though not enough) iconic action sequences. And Lena Headey had the most badass part in the whole movie lol.
Excellent action movie, great soundtrack and acting. A fantastic comic adaptation, the visuals are artificial but incredibly impressive. A true fantastic action movie, must-see.
i didn't find it revolutionary on any front. in the literary sense, the film is only about as intelligent as the video game god of war. visually, it's more or less asian cinema in saturated color with some extra cgi. also, i have been to greece. the landscapes are not accurate at all. there were a few dramatic touches that were above average, such as the effort to make the traitor ephialtes a two-dimensional character and a couple of genius lines not taken from history, namely talking about civility as they kill off persian wounded and leonidas telling ephialtes that he hopes ephialtes lives forever, a veiled insult in spartan culture. there's also a lot of christian imagery in the transitions and some pro-war propaganda thrown in the mix too. a quality effort but not exactly extraordinary.
Epic clash of brave 300 soldiers defending a path to their Kingdom. I couldn't help but to love the action, the story, and directing was amazing. This film will go down in history as one of the greatest historic movies ever.
Gerard Butler did amazing, i didn't like the guy til I saw him in this film. Loved it.
300 was a movie that had amazing special effects and there are some great slow motion battle scenes. Unfortunately a majority of the movie was just battle scenes and there was little storyline development. Gerard Butler did an okay job as King Leonidas.
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