300 – Mark Burns
Smart, entertaining, well crafted and grandly stylized, the graphic novel based on the Battle of Thermopylae makes rousing cinema.
Spartans rage for freedom against the Persian empire in this grandly stylized Hoplites vs. Immortals glory film.
The manly men of Sparta are plodding through a spate of peace when emissaries of the Persian king Xerxes come riding into town bearing ill tidings. Offer tithings to their god-king, Xerxes commands, and submit to Persian rule. This ruffles the war brush of King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, the Phantom from Joel Schumacher’s 2004 Phantom of the Opera), who responds by marching out to the hot gates, a seaside mountain pass, with a host of 300 elite Spartans. There he makes a stand to be remembered for the ages as his small force of warriors and allied Greeks check Xerxes’ massive invading army.
The film, adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic novel, is based on the Battle of Thermopylae, perhaps the most storied battle of antiquity. In truth some 7,000 Greeks, led by 300 elite Spartans, did make a stand against a Persian army at least 150,000 strong (Herodotus claimed over five million) and ultimately spared Greece from Xerxes’ conquest.
In this tale, the odds are more like 300 vs. a million with uncounted token Arcadians thrown in behind Leonidas. Greek traitor Ephialtes is re-imagined as a Gollum-like hunchback. Xerxes and his heralds are the gods of glam in their glittery menace. Warty old priests consult an oracle atop a great stone spire, and the swarms of Immortals at Xerxes’ command are as mad wraiths. The conquering army lunges at the defenders with gnarled freaks and fantastically adorned exotic beasts plucked from the dark edge of antiquity’s maps. It’s a bold mix of history and fantasy, surprisingly loyal to truth given its rabid stylization. The Spartan struggle is given full respect, the warriors’ history elevated to myth in true Greek fashion.
Naturally, there can be no myth without heroic action, and the film delivers strong. The silly gesticulations of Brad Pitt in Troy are forgotten as Leonidas’ Hoplites form up in phalanx against the crashing hordes of Xerxes’ army.
To see the previews, one might gather that the film is naught but blood and battle cry. Granted, there’s much of both. They’re Sparta’s manliest men, after all. But surges of testosterone are broken by interjections of intelligent story.
Smart writing includes historical quips and runs with ballsy attitude. Sparta’s culture of strength and survivalism is driven home in recounting the king’s rites of passage. Once battle looms, a timely cleverness evolves within the story. At home, Queen Gorgo tries to win the council’s support while shady rival Theron decries her husband’s war as illegal. Even as this subplot unfolds, Leonidas rallies soldiers at the battlefront, touting the battle as a conflict of Greek reason and freedom versus Persian mysticism and oppression.
Similar nods mirror modern controversy, tempting conclusions of parallel without totally beating it into viewers’ heads. In doing so, the ancient tale is thrust into modern debate, lending relevance. That the story is so wholly developed and nimbly executed lends the movie real muscle.
Visually, the film’s a beauty. Director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) has infused nearly every shot with some manner of digital tinkering, whether a painted sky or distorted nemeses. Wild seas, lavish skies and cold stone all speak to the Spartan warrior aesthetic even as the colorful hedonism of Xerxes’ tent speaks to his own excess. The characters are rendered monstrous by costume and effect alike, and it’s by these combined visuals that the tale ascends to mythic proportions.
All said, 300 makes for rousing cinema: smart, entertaining and well crafted. Politicals might perceive neocon fantasy, but whatever your angle it’s a great ride.
Great action film • R • 117 min.