Yesterday I had a lot of caffeine ( Some 85% dark chocolate, Coke, lunch+coke, Tim tam iced coffee, chocolate, and more chocolate at the movies), but apart from that, I finally got to see the 300, which finally decided to get of its butt and come to Australia to be watched. For what it’s worth, it was one of the coolest movies I have seen all year – but then again there are some crazily “mouth froth” worthy movies coming which I have to see like Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, Harry Potter 5, Pixar’s Ratatouille and a whole bunch more.
The whole stylised colouring in the 300 was amazingly cool, with the rich reds in the battle field making the violent gore seem soooooooo much cooler. For each environment, there was a different palette, but it worked really well with the overall feel. The whole story is basically about the army of 300 elite Spartans in ye old days fighting for their freedom against the vast Persian army (its basically 300 and one dudes against a gagillion people). The thing that kind of threw me though, was the strange creatures in the movie. Whilst Zach Snyder kept the whole look at feel very accurate to the comic, some of the creatures in it were so bizarre that there was laughter in the cinema.
Perhaps the mildest one was the hunchback man who had some huge tumor for a back, and a face that would make you want to eat your own limbs without anesthetic.
There was also some huge behemoth of a dude in chains which the Persians had that managed to take several stabs to the legs and things with swords, and even one through its biceps without even flinching. It was all sweet though because King Leonides cut of his head – EL OH EL.
There were countless other strange things like super ginormous rhinos and things, but the strangest thing in the movie was some pimpin’ thing which had all the hot chicks around it, and has a goat head. There were many WTFs in the cinema when it briefly appeared on screen, but it was really funny at the same time. I think I will call him (yeah a him I thinks) goatheadman , he’s not AS cool as manbearbig, but oh well, they could make some interesting offspring/s (yeah because adding an “s” to anything makes it plurals…).
Just like Sin City it stuck VERY close to the comic frames, so Frank Miller fans will not be disappointed. If you want proof, look at the excellent comic to screen comparison on flickr.
As strange as some bits were,I liked it so much I might even watch it again.
Go see it or I’ll make you birth goatheadman’s offspring.