I can’t hold myself back anymore. I need to scream it from the rooftops: “300” is phenomenal – one of those movies that rips out your spine and uses it to whip you across the face. It’s the first 2007 release that I’ve given the maximum four stars, and that figure feels far too low. Here’s an excerpt from my review, which will run tomorrow. I haven’t liked a film this much since “Before Sunset” in ‘04:
The movie “300” is rated R for “RAAAAAR!” and is about as inspirational as “Field of Dreams” multiplied by “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” plus infinity.
High school football coaches who show this to their players before games are guaranteed to win 55-0. Should opposing coaches show the DVD to each of their teams before the matchup, a rupture in the space-time continuum will occur and the game will be declared a tie…
Director Zack Snyder alternates between sepia-toned
slo-mo and kaleidoscopic blasts of fever-dream adrenaline with scenes that look like they were cut with Ginsu knifes by teppanyaki chefs hopped up on Red Bull.
The Spartans are a super-human elite squad of lumberjack pirates who were trained by the the great-great-grandpa of Chuck Norris’ paternal ancestor. A prologue explains that from the age of 7, Spartans are forged into die-hard dynamos of fury who can kill with their bare hands. It was either their forced sojourn into wilderness that makes them that way or that they played violent video games.
They battle the millions-strong army of the Persians, which includes wave after wave of easily disposed screaming maniacs, followed by black-hooded elite Delta Force Persians who are like zombies – gotta take their heads off or impale their hearts if you want ’em dead.
The Persians also trot out gimongous armored rhinos and war elephants that got kicked out of the zoo for being too big and angry.
Sparta is led by warrior King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), whose idea of a strategic troop surge is to round up a few of his buddies and stomp out on the battlefield for an eight-hour slaughterfest, with a snack break to munch an apple while watching his lackeys rake up the corpses.