Death & Glory (blog)

I’ve just finished watching 300 on DVD and was blown away once again by Zack Snyder’s ability to capture the stylistic approach Frank Miller used when doing the 3oo graphic novel. The saturation of colour throughout the movie manages to almost transform the film into a comic book. The battle scenes are done extraordinarily well, and their heightened level of violence manages to avoid being merely violence for the sake of violence and rather adds to the film’s comic book roots. The characters and plot are wafer thin when you examine them for more than 5 minutes, but that should not detract you from watching this film. It serves more as a testament to the strength and valour of the 300 Spartans than it does to the violence of the battles. I know some people were of the opinion that the film served as a thinly veiled propaganda piece for the West vs Islamic world, but I think that’s really trying to read too much into a somewhat simplistic movie in terms of story. 300 serves as the perfect popcorn film and will survive repeat viewings simply because it approaches the historical epic movie genre from a totally different direction than previous films of its ilk. Frank Miller has struck gold again with 300 in the same way that Sin City managed to reinvigorate the film noir genre for a brand new generation of film goers.