300 (2007) - Movie Review

I love a sword-and-sandals epic, and I love it even more when the actors look like the casting call for a Bally's commercial.

Director Zack Snyder may have just created the ultimate anti-chickflick (dickflick?). Feast your eyes on 300, a superstylized, hypermasculinized celluloid interpretation of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name. And it's not only the men who are buff, waxed, polished and camera ready; every frame in 300 is like a panel of the comic book brought to vivid life in only the way special effects and CGI can accomplish. It's a marvel to behold and considering the recent box office tallies, this virtual studio technology is about to blow up like no one else's business.

Sadly, the "beauty is skin deep" adage applies here. While a wonder for the eyes, 300 tells a fairly linear storyline with stiff dialogue that also seems to be directly lifted from its comic book origins. Forgoing historical accuracy, Miller's "300" recounts the very real events of the Battle at Thermopylae, where the Spartan King Leonidas in 480 B.C.E. manages to fend off Xerxes' Persian army numbering - according to historical record - almost 150,000. Outnumbered with a mere 300 soldiers (and alongside some 4,000 Greek allies), Leonidas' stand at Thermopylae is regarded, among other things, as history's most epically lopsided battle. Snyder's film takes its cue from the graphic novel and the battle serves as the movie's main storyline with just a wisp of subplot involving Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) and the corrupt senator, Theron (Dominic West).

As King Leonidas, Gerard Butler cuts a fine figure of a king who loves his wife and country and embodies the Spartan ideal of dying a worthy death through battle. In fact, themes of valor, honor, duty and strength are so constantly hammered throughout the film that it becomes tiresome and one-note. I don't understand why the Spartans' battlecry is a reverse knockoff of Al Pacino's, "hoo-wa!" from Scent of a Woman, but a little of that goes a long way. Overacting never equals believability, but I guess there's no room for subtlety when masculinity and testosterone are in overdrive.

The battle scenes are graphic, gorgeous and beautifully choreographed. The sets are bathed in deep golden tones and rich chocolates so that only spurts of gore or the crimson capes of its warriors roll and billow in bold relief. However, if you're looking for a humanistic and more accurate account of the sheer chaos and dread of war, Saving Private Ryan still remains the standard. Here, any form of violence is either an expression of mighty athletic prowess or artful depravity (the tree of corpses is such an example). Not that 300 aspires to be realistic in any sense; it's not meant to be. Its otherworldly cinematography, floating half naked oracles and giant mutants suggest another reality with no vested humanity in the proceedings.

The only thing that truly touched a nerve for me was the androgynous Xerxes, played by Rodrigo Santoro. With a decidedly effeminate air and blinged out as if he were on a float at Rio's Carnivale, Xerxes is megalomaniacal, depraved, and ruthless; his court featuring a panoply of decadent tropes such as weird goatmen and disfigured women kissing each other. There's a disturbing whiff of homophobia in this subtext for which I truly didn't care.

At face value 300 is as beautiful and cheap as costume jewelry. I thoroughly enjoyed its visual swagger, the dreamscape setting, as well as its straightforward, albeit hyperbolized storytelling, but after the lights come up and it's business as usual, you'll find that 300 resonates no more than the half-eaten tub of popcorn you just left behind in the theater.