I watched 300 last sunday, and I almost creamed my pants.

300 is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel , which is the story of the Battle of Thermopylae . In this battle , 300 Spartans have to defend a narrow road from the massive Persian army.

Firstly, this movie is historically inaccurate in these ways:

• There were actually 5000+ soldiers in the Greek army . Including 300 Spartans of course.
• Persians of ancient times were not just giants, ninjas, lesbians and monsters.

Then again, we did not watch this movie for a history lesson, did we ?

300 is aimed at the videogame generation and it really shows. The game that comes to mind , is of course God of War. Greek mythology and monsters aside , if God of War were to be made perfectly into a movie, 300 would be it.

The first thing you’ll notice about the film is the superb art direction. The film has a grainy , washed out look, making everything hyper-stylized. Not like how history would look like, but how legends are supposed to be told. Beautiful.

The next thing you’ll notice is the ultra-violence. Yes, somehow our censorship board let this pass and didn’t censor a damned thing ! Severed heads , limbs , sword against metal , sword against flesh never looked so beautiful. Violence , never looked so beautiful.

The action , is breathtaking. Slow motion is used to it’s best effect here. Everytime a spear or sword hit something, you can feel the impact. Seriously, some of the action sequences nearly made me cry. It’s that good.

Next , is the machismo of it all. All of the Spartans, are blood-crazed , laughing at fear and insurmountable odds. Hell, every single damned Spartan has a six-packed-abs. Even the queen is very macho. The audience in my cinema (probably feminists) were applauding at one scene.

The music is a mix of typical movie score , rock and industrial music. When I watched the trailer and they had a NIN song in it , I wouldn’t imagine that they actually would put industrial music in the movie. One scene had the Spartans marching , and it was awe-inspiring. Of course, it all blends well into the movie, raising it all to a whole new level.

If you guys have not realized, I really love this movie. I’ve put it into my favorite movies of all time. Here’s the updated list :

• Saving Private Ryan
• 300
• Gladiator
• American Beauty
• Forrest Gump
• Apocalypto
• Troy( 300 kicked Troy’s ass of this list )

Hell, this is the results of my fanboyism:

• cutting my hair like a Spartan helmet
• attempting to get a Spartan six pack
• watch it the second time , and third time. alone , if I have to …
• pledging to buy the original DVD when it comes out
• ranting and raving to all my classmates
• ranting and raving on my blog !

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 10:02 am and is filed under movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.