300

After gaving us some of the greatest epic movies in the last 50 years,it was clear that filmmakers needed to take them to the next level.

But how can you make a new movie,for the audience to like,without recycling old material?

Answer:You improve what old filmmakers couldn't:Graphics.

Ben Hur,Braveheart,Gladiator,Spartacus and perhaps even Troy are only some of the epic movies that gave the audience so big thrills that they cannot be repeated. Almost every epic movie that will be made today,no matter how good the story will be or how faithful will be to reality,is bound to repeat itself.We got examples from Alexander and Kingdom of Heaven.

300 doesn't apply to this category.Besides it takes the epic to the next level.And more are like to follow.

Just like in the Lord of the Rings,much CGI was used here.

The result? This movie was a pleasure for the eye.

All the camera work and graphics exceeded my expectations. I thought they were comparable,if not better,to the LOTR,go see for yourselves.

I could write something about the plot or the actors's outstanding performances(especially Gerard Butler's..you see,being Greek-Italian,I wanted the best from the actors..Butler gave it. The anger in his eyes,the fury in his voice and the violence in his actions really reminded an ancient Greek king),but I won't ruin it for you. You must see it to understand how great this movie is.

But always remember that this is a movie that is based on a graphic novel and is by no means a faithful depiction of what really happened in Thermopylae in 480 B.C. All those who will pay the ticket to see this movie,must be prepared not for a historic movie,but for a stylish battle movie.

This movie,together with the LOTR,is the entrance to the 21st century's new epic movies.

Kudos to Zack Snyder,who came from nowhere and has,already from Dawn of the Dead,proved that he is a brilliant and capable director. We will surely see more of him in the upcoming years.

So,you read my Comment?

Aren't you curious?

What are you waiting for?

Run to the nearest cinema,see this piece of art and when you are finished don't forget to come to IMDb to vote. This movie is destined to be at least in the top 100.

C'mon people!Hail for 300,the Evolution of Epic Battles!

Really enjoyed it.

My only regret is I saw it at a non IMAX Cinema.

Don't get caught up in all the anti hype. Enjoy it for what it is which is a good tale, great action scenes, (if not a little over done), great war film acting and above all, a moral tale for today's age.

As for the historical angle and the comparison against the old film, try to enjoy this one as a modern updated version not unknown for its up to date (and cgi'd) feel.

Its the sort of film which made me want to find out about the Spartans and this particular period. Sad of me? Maybe, but I don't mind, it was great fun.

Enjoy, I certainly did.

Hearing that 300 is based upon a " graphic novel " which is a pseudo intellectual phrase used to describe a comic book I didn't go out of my way to watch this because the present Hollywood movie making factory spends too much time and money bringing these type of stories to the screen . Also I was very unimpressed with director Zack Snyder's previous film the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD which is a pale imitation of a superior movie . Sometimes prejudice can get in the way of judging a film of its own merits because 300 is one of the more memorable movie moments from last year and one that seems unforgivably ignored at the more prestigious film award ceremonies

Being based upon a comic book you could say in all honesty that the visuals mirror those of a graphic novel , but I would claim it goes far , far beyond that and say it's like watching a painting come to life . The battle scenes are entirely different from those seen in LORD OF THE RINGS or KINGDOM OF HEAVEN but are no less impressive and some of the battle sequences , most notably the ones featuring the immortals are terrifying . Did I say this film is like a painting come to life ? In some sequences it looks like a nightmare come to life and this stylish formalist type of cinema will send a chill down your spine . This is cinema strictly for adults only

Fans of ancient history and classical studies will find a lot to criticise 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 and let's be honest here , with the exception of voice over the dialogue is rather poor . It often reminded me of something present day Scottish folk hero John Smeaton might say : " Dinnae come tae Sparta , we'll set aboot ya up here "

But despite these very noticeable flaws this is a truly memorable movie down to the jaw dropping visuals and it's the visuals the film will be rightly remembered for . It's a pity that the Oscar voters have 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

300 tells the story of the 300 Spartans who defended their homes against the Persian army. The movie is a phenomenal action packed story that sticks pretty close to the actual events. The movie is done in a style similar to a graphic novel which adds high contrast and beautiful slow motion scenes. Overall, the movie is incredibly entertaining and tells a fascinating story.

The title refers to "the good friend" character who gives a memorial speech at the end, presenting the legacy that grows to fantastic proportions on its way to us as narrator whose words are from another planet. Presumably you as a viewer will make the association I did the with the demigods of Olympus, so artificial and childlike are the notions this narrator presents. They are so simple and extreme, these notions of how the world is abstracted through one eye..

It allows us to take a very few indicators and suppose a world. Deliberate deprivation of young boys is supposed to somehow instill valor. Flying blood droplets is supposed to somehow validate combat expertise. Tactical stubbornness leading to defeat is somehow celebrated, I suppose, coming very close to the 72 virgins bit. Yes, indeed, sometimes this slipped for me into the opposite of what it was intended to purify. The elixir of admiration for the west snapped to Zoroastrian soma more often than not.

That's because the history is that the Persians (the Achaemenids were actually Medes, more like Afghans are today) were the great world-builders of the era, creating less a totalitarian state than a federation of free states that flourished by trade not terror. And the Spartans were the thugs, the warlords who oppressed and terrorized their neighbors, building a state based on pillaged wealth. Even the Nazi association is reversed, the Medes were the Aryans, the Spartans essentially African, and no longer extant in today's Greece.

(Later, the Alexandran Macedonians, the Greeks of today, destroyed the by then corrupt and fragile Persian empire and all its great libraries and histories, torturing the collected scientists to death, in what has to have been the greatest and most brutal setbacks of civilization ever.)

So the resonances with today keep oscillating in a strange and stimulating dance between the intended admiration of these thugs we are meant to feel as the west, and those of Islam. But that "struggle" is over issues as remote from this as swimsuits are from locomotives. Let's even say vinyl padded speedos.

As a movie, the thing is oddly uneven. It's tied together by a consistent score, mixed of heavy metal and aeolian voices. And it does have a story, actually two; though simple, they span the thing and stitch pieces together. But there are distinct visual styles here, too many to integrate. I felt actually as if I were defending myself from some of them as they came at me just as the different components of the Persian army attacked the 300 hooting bodybuilders.

Its inevitable I suppose, when the computer work is so massive it has to be parsed out to creative teams distributed all over the world, and they have nothing better to go on than a comic book. I will admit that some of the these teams gave me great satisfaction, some of them in the actual battle scenes where the speed-shifts worked to emphasize the mapping of comic panels into reality. This, if you follow such things, was developed by Peter Weir in "Gallipoli," starring a then new Mel Gibson. Mel then sorta borrowed them for his own battle epic, including the early scene where he lops off a head. Here we emphasize the flying bodies, body parts and blood which quite literally become architectural. In fact there are three distinct architectural structures here made of bodies, and many others large and small made of living men.

For me the center of the thing is the early scene where the oracle is consulted. Three bits of background.

— when I see this plot device early in a movie, someone with a vision (or dream or hallucination) I tend to see the rest of the movie as what's in that vision. In other words here, when this girl reports what she sees in the future, the report is the movie that follows, and that we see through her eyes. It works for me because then I can ascribe the limits of the vision I see to the character I know shaped it.

— one of my most valued movie experiences is a very early short film. Shucks I see my comment on it here at IMDb is deleted. (If anyone saved it, please send it to me.) Its a dancer with flowing garments that sail with her in space. Over this has been hand painted color that overlaps the boundaries of the fabric, the first spatial artificial effect in film. Its transporting, this century-old image. Its copied in many ways here with the oracle's appearance. She's a drugged young beauty, and they use this as an excuse to have her dance, with smoke, hair, skin and fabric tendrils weaving space, sex, sense, vision. The designers of this scene were used nowhere else that I could tell. Its an extraordinary bit of art.

— There's something inherently cinematic about redheads. All filmmakers know this. Its in many how-to shortcut books. But like other fundamentals, no matter how hackneyed it gets, it can still be effective. In a film of actors whose hair has been blacked to seem Greek (and elsewhere skin darkened to seem "Persian"), they find an Irish girl to play the oracle. I guess she's pretty; it's hard to tell because she's less a person than the provider of hair and a nipple in a complex assembly, but there you have the redhead, first seen doing a Gilda hair introduction.

I saw this in a theater with a friend and despite dangerous political twinges we got swept up in it, together with the people in the auditorium. I think there's an analogy between the brotherhood of the men we see, and the implied brotherhood of the people in the audience. It brought us closer through vision. Film can do a lot worse.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.