Good: - Hot damn, that was a beautifully art-directed movie! The crispness, detail, hyper-realism and cartoonish blood. - The expansion of the Queen's role. Great to contrast the battles, but also just to balance out the action as well. - The music. I thought it was a...

Although movies based on comic books are becoming more popular, they still aren't considered very mainstream and generally haven't been very successful. Some superhero films have certainly pulled ahead of the pack ("X-Men" and "Spider-Man" come to mind) and brought in...

My Advice: Matinee. King Leonidas (Butler) is the ruler of Sparta. Sparta, and the rest of Greece, happens to be in the path of Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his massive Persian army. Xerxes sends a messenger with a simple request: submit or we'll kick your ass. Seems...

[i]Thanks to The Butlers Wife for this review![/i] 4 of 5 stars “Our arrows will blot out the sun.” “Then we shall fight in the shade.” Would you have the balls to say this facing “the 1,000 nations of the Persian Empire”? In 300, Spartan warrior Stelios (Michael...

[i]Thank you to Ann for sending in this review![/i] When Rudolph Maté's epic about the Battle of Thermopylae, "The 300 Spartans," was released in 1962, it arrived at the tail end of Hollywood's longest sword-and-sandals cycle. Critics and audiences promptly ignored...

‘300′- the 117 minute Action drama starring Gerard Butler, has all the blood and violence needed to keep the adrenaline flowing in your veins. The film, directed by Zack Snyder, is a journey back into the era when the toughest decision were taken in the most barbaric...

Of the movies being released this year, 300 may well have been the one I was most looking forward. In my youth one of my favourite films was 300 Spartans. And years ago I read the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Loving both the 1962 movie and the...

When you're watching the spectacle that is Zack Snyder and Frank Miller's "300," I can certainly see why it's tempting to forget that this is simply a comic book movie. Granted, an ambitious and nearly flawlessly rendered one, but a comic book movie all the same. So,...

MACHISMO is dished out in big helpings when the Spartans stand up to the Persians in the latest version of the Battle of Thermopylae. The result, Zack Snyder's "300," is a wild testosterone cartoon that is neither historical nor hysterical but somewhere in between -...

I took my family ( minus my wife-sorry hon! ) to see ” 300 “, and while my daughter really did not care for it, nor my Mom ( which pretty much means my wife would not have liked it either ) my daughter’s boyfriend Brett and I enjoyed it and my friend and sometime...

I will seriously do whatever you want if you stop yelling at me. Everything about 300 is extraordinary and over-the-top. The performances, the violence, the neo-con rhetoric, the reliance on computer-generated abs, the gore, the nudity, the slow-motion – everything....

THREE OUT OF FOUR STARS Frank Miller has retained a modicum of control over how his graphic novels (don’t call them “comic books”) are brought to the screen, whether by holding out for the best offer and participating in the production. “Sin City” (2005) was a...

Go tell the Spartans that their sacrifice was not in vain; their long day's fight under the cooling shade of a million falling arrows safeguarded the West and guaranteed, all these years later, the right of idiots to make rotten movies about them. The story has been...

Film doesn’t have fully rounded characters, but it is a visual spectacle When Rudolph Mate’s epic about the Battle of Thermopylae, “The 300 Spartans,” was released in 1962, it arrived at the tail end of Hollywood’s longest sword-and-sandals cycle. Critics and...

Before there was an Alamo – or an Agincourt, or an Iwo Jima – there was the Battle of Thermopylae, ancient Greece's official entry in the "all-time great last stands" sweepstakes. From a numbers standpoint, it presents a nearly unbeatable scenario: 300 Spartans,...

[b]A full-bore gore, total-immersion and visually thrilling battle experience that's not for the faint hearted[/b] All you sissies and pantywaists, out of the theatre. This means you, Skippy, cowering in the corner with your man purse and your granola bar. The Spartan...

Before leaving Friday evening for a particular movie theater in Orlando, I decided to read one last review of "300," which opens this weekend. It was from CNN, and they didn't like it. "It's not so much the body count or even the bloodlust that's disturbing," CNN's...

From the moments its trailer hit the Internet and theaters, "300" left people gaping at the beauty that could be found in 30 seconds of footage. Graphic novelist Frank Miller, also the mastermind behind "Sin City," divulges the epic tale of historical Battle of...

Mar. 9--Movies like "Letters From Iwo Jima" reflect the contemporary belief that any war movie worth its salt must capture the horror of armed combat. "300," on the other hand, believes it's enough to capture the fun of watching a war movie on Saturday afternoon. Some...

In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, boys are taken at age 7 from their families for years of, well, Spartan training, to become warriors of matchless strength and suicidal bravery. King Leonidas hails them as a breed apart from those wimpy "philosophers and boy...

{FACTBOX} Movie review "300" Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West Director: Zack Snyder Running time: 117 minutes Rating: R; graphic violence, nudity, sexuality *** 1/2 **** Excellent *** Good ** Average * Poor In the cinema, there have always been...

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE) 300: Action drama. Starring Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and Dominic West. Directed by Zack Snyder. (R. 117 minutes. At Bay Area theaters. See complete movie listings and show times, and buy tickets for select theaters, at sfgate.com/movies.)...

Neither history nor cinema is especially well served by "300," which is, nonetheless, a remarkable intersection of technology and imagination. The battle at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., a suicidal last stand by an army of Spartans and Thespians estimated at about 5,000,...

Zack Snyder raises Frank Miller's brutalist comic-book aesthetic to a bloody new level. Also: The attack of 'The Host.' Robert Rodriguez's "Sin City" was an eye-frying accomplishment — the movie lifted Frank Miller's stark noir fantasy world straight off the...

"300," a visually spectacular and blood-drenched adaptation of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel, turns ancient war into a ballet of death. The film's origins on a painted page are evident in its stylized images and stunning cinematography. You could call...