300: My Review, A Week Before it Comes Out!!!

300: My Review, A Week Before it Comes Out!!!


rxsheepxr pushes on


February 28, 2007


by Chris P


Hey guys,

Someone I know from some message boards asked me to write an advance review of 300 for figures.com, and I did. I saw the review on figures.com, nice to see it posted; and I realize that they had to edit it, but there are things they changed that were just inaccurate. When I mentioned "dudeity" in my review, I wasn't saying there was any male nudity, as there WAS NO MALE NUDITY... I was merely pointing out that other reviewers have mentioned that there's a lot of male flesh in the movie and that it shouldn't be a deterrant to seeing the film... but the way they've got it edited makes me sound just like the very critics I was making fun of.

On top of that, when he added things to my review, they were added along with typos. I'm not saying that I'm perfect, but there were parts in the review that HE added that had typos, making me look even more dense.

I decided to post the original review on here in tandem with it going on figures.com; consider it a director's cut because a lot of the things I liked about my review, some of my personality and style of wording got lost in the editing, and it's a shame. Again, I'd like to thank Crowinghorse for the opportunity, but the review doesn't even sound like something I wrote. It's not a knock against him or anything, but a lot of things he added in there aren't even necessarily accurate (nudity, etc.) I'll consider this my first taste of writer's bitterness at being heavily edited. I don't want to sound like a pompous ass or anything, but the integrity of my review has changed dramatically from what I wrote to what appears on the website, and I wasn't happy with that.

So here is the original review of the movie, hope you guys appreciate seeing it here in it's entirety as opposed to a heavily edited version:


300: A Review

If violence is poetry, then 300 is the most beautiful poem I’ve seen in years.

I was fortunate enough to get to see 300 in an advance screening in Toronto on Monday. UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell was there to introduce the film, some kind of partnership they had going with the Fight Network. That was pretty cool, as I’m a bit of a UFC fan. Anyhow…

I own and have read Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 many times. Having been a fan of his for years, when it was announced that a film version of 300 was going to be made, I panicked. ‘How were they going to pull this off?’ I asked myself. Well I’m here to just straight up say, as a film geek, comic geek, and general geek all around, that Zack Snyder has directed one of the most beautiful, violent, heartbreaking films I’ve ever seen. I’m going to keep this quick review spoiler free, though there’s not much to spoil. As far as plot, there isn’t much of one. You do not go to see a movie like 300 expecting there to be epic political intrigue or twists worthy of Shyamalan, you go to see 300 for the cinematography, the brutality, the fighting, and the effects. If you go into this movie hoping for a great complex story, you’ll be disappointed.

The movie is about 300 Spartan soldiers who leave their home to meet with the approaching Persian army. The Persians number in the millions. The 300 Spartans go to fight. They go to win for their home or die with as much glory as possible.

The violence. Oh, the glorious violence. There’s more blood and decapitations and sword slashes and arrows through human flesh in this movie than in any other I’ve seen in a long time. We see heads roll, blood gush, limbs fly, but not once do we ever turn away. It’s not ‘gross’ at all. It’s not brutal for the sake of brutal. It’s done tastefully, even while being right in our face. It’s very hard for me to explain, to be honest. Put it this way, I was in a theater full of upper class, ‘connected’ people, and there was a huge section of the theater reserved for the press, so people could review the movie. These are not people like me at all, and they all seemed to know each other; it was as if I was at a family reunion where I was the only person who wasn’t a member of the family. Anyhow, I never expected a lot of them to enjoy the violence, especially some of the more “stuck up” looking wimmins; but again, like I said at the start, the violence was like poetry, it was gorgeous. EVERYONE in the audience seemed to love this movie. The kids (who really shouldn't have been there as it's rated R) the women, the men, the questionably gendered, everyone. There were parts where people cheered the violence. The violence and fighting onscreen was done so well it was almost like dancing; but don’t take that the wrong way, please. Seriously, it’s brutal.

There’s one shot where we follow King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) as he leads the Spartans into a fight and he dispatches of about 20 Persians, one after another. They slow the camera down at key points, using this technology to essentially slow the action down to show us scenes from the comic in live action. It’s amazingly smart use of slow motion, and while I do think there are people out there that aren’t going to like the slow motion’s use, I certainly did. It added to the poetry.

I want to quickly address the ‘dudeity.’ We see a lot of male torsos in this movie, very athletic, muscular torsos. I’ve read some reviews that mention this in a bad way, but that’s how they dressed, that’s how they looked, 300 is a good representation of that. If you’re that uncomfortable with your sexuality that you can’t watch a movie where guys have abs, then I feel sorry for you, because you’d be missing out on an amazing film. And besides, there are some boobs to even it out.

The performances were great. Gerard Butler has had some decent roles, and King Leonidas is one of the best for him. He plays the King with such intensity and even such wit, that we believe the man exists. We laugh at his jokes, we listen when he talks, we’d follow him into the battle if we could. And despite what a lot of people are saying, not all the dialogue in this movie is screamed. I can’t remember where I read that, but some reviewers are idiots. Whatever. Other notable performances come from David Wenham (Faramir from Lord of the Rings), whom I hadn’t even realized was in the movie, as I deliberately avoided reading about the movie before seeing it. Wenham plays an important role, and is also responsible for narrating the movie. Vincent Regan plays Leonidas’s Captain, and he’s got some great, great moments as well concerning him and his son. Amazing stuff that I won’t spoil for you here.

Everything in this movie is great, straight up. The music is phenomenal, the effects dance on the line between comic book and realistic, which works perfectly. A lot of people will invariably compare this movie to Sin City, just because it’s got Frank Miller’s name attached to it, but comparing the movies is unfair. Sin City was a geek’s dream, but 300, this movie is something else all together.

Ugh, I wanted to limit myself to 500-700 words in this review, and I’ve already gone over that. I could continue for hours, but I’ll reel it in for now, and I’ll leave you with this: I hadn’t cheered at something in a movie for a very, very long time, but I cheered no less than five times during 300. And I cheered even more when the movie was over, realizing I’d just seen something the likes of which I’d never seen before. Zack Snyder and his crew should be proud, this movie came out nearlyperfect. Highest possible recommendation, here, people.

If you want to know anything a little more detailed about the movie, if there are specific questions you need answered before seeing the movie yourself, feel free to email me at rxsheepxr@hotmail.com and I’ll be happy to let you know whatever you’re curious about.

Thanks for reading, folks.

-rxsheepxr

And if you're curious as to why I posted this here, go see the edited version at http://www.figures.com/databases/act...icle=1520&nl=1 and I'm sure you'll understand. While his version of my review does the job, it ends up sounding like a Diet version of mine. Thanks again to Crowinghorse for the opportunity, I guess I just don't like seeing something I wrote turned into fluff.


Thanks again for reading, hope you enjoy the movie as much as I did.

-ChrisP






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