Monday, April 02, 2007

300

300 (***)

I don't really feel the need to write a huge review for this. The story is more or less based on the historical battle of Thermopylae, but the story is basically a loose outline between huge, stylized fight scenes. Like the trailer, characters yell a lot of stuff dramatically, but the dialogue is really not all that important. Visually, the movie is amazing. Like Sin City, it's a testament to how CGI can be used to create otherwise impossible settings, without being loud and obnoxious and distracting from the human performances.

300 is in no way as deep of a work as Sin City. Sin City was just as stylized and violent, but each of its main characters went through a tremendous amount of development throughout their respective stories. While 300 follows its hero Leonitis, from his childhood up to his famous last stand, it's first and foremost about the battle itself and not about giving any deep insights about his character. But it's impossible not to find the fighting badass, and in the end that's really all you need for a movie to be entertaining enough to be worth the price of admission. If you like action movies, you'll like 300.