300 (2007)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

King Leonidas of Sparta and a force of 300 men fight the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. B

One of the most visually stunning movies of the 2000's, Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Millers "300" graphic novel, is brilliant. It's nearly a scene for scene adaptation of the brilliant graphic novel. The casting is excellent, as for history... Well, the 300 did make their stand at Thermopylae, but it was nothing like this. I'm not going to take anything away from this fantasy version of history. It's not meant to be taken seriously, but to entertain the viewer. And it does. And if it makes people seek our the real story - that's even better.

If Troy was bad this is even worse.... omg why so bad and inaccurate????? Why Xerxes like an terrible drag queen and the Spartans like underwear models? And the elephants??? Don't do that again...

The story of Spartan King Leonidas holding the Persian Army of Xerxes at bay at the battle of Thermopylae. As far as I can remember -- I was there but it's been a long time -- it's reasonably accurate historically although perforce some of the dialog must be fabricated.If it has any redeeming social value it's probably that the kids who are the intended audience will learn that there was once a city called Sparta that wasn't in Mississippi.But the photography and f/x are something special. Images are in high contrast and tinted a kind of gold except at night, when they're tinted a kind of blue. Not midnight blue but kind of a neon blue.The acting is professional in caliber. Some of the monsters (for that's how they're depicted) overplay their roles, if that's possible. The women are attractive and it's interesting to see that the queen has been outfitted by Dior or somebody, wearing a dress cut perilously low on her iliac crests. The men are uniformly built. Their pecs are massive. Their abs are rock hard. In fact, they're built almost identically. Can you photoshop a group scene? If it weren't for the photography and f/x it could be a sword and sandal epic from 1958 filmed in Cinecittá starring Lance Sterling (née Guglielmo Gogliucci). But the photography alone almost redeems the film. The skies are straight out of J. M. W. Turner, smoky and smudged, but slowly swirling.It's thought provoking but the thoughts it provokes are primitive. There is no overlap between good (white Spartans) and evil (black Persians). This kind of binary thinking is dangerous because it's liable to lead us into believing that this is the way the real world works -- all good versus all evil -- whereas in fact God didn't make the universe in a way that renders it so easy for humans to understand.Too bad they distilled Spartan culture into nothing more than a lot of heroes taking "drunk delight in battle with my peers." The Spartans certainly fought well and the battle scenes are impressive except when they lapse into very slow motion or are overcranked to lightning speed.Sparta must have been a nice place to visit though you wouldn't want to live there. They periodically raided their neighbors, the peaceful Helots, for slaves. Older mentors adopted young boys as sexual objects. If a newborn was deformed or otherwise deemed unfit it was put down.