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300
300 is a bit of a strange movie. I only realised during the final scene that it was a saga in the style of the Odyssey or any of those other historical Greek poems with visuals being used to avoid the long descriptions, which they felt were necessary to put in using a Narrator anyway. Maybe, if I had realised this earlier, I would have enjoyed it more, but I doubt it.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a film quite like 300. It had some gratuitous sex, lots of gratuitous violence and still almost managed to put me to sleep. How could a film based solely on a band of 300 men defying an army of thousands put you to sleep I hear you ask, and to tell the truth, I’m still puzzled at that one myself.
Maybe it was the number of slow motion impaling-death sequences they showed, like they were worried about running out of film so they used slow motion sequences so they could get away with stretching 30 minutes of footage into a 90 minute film. Maybe, it was the half-hearted (and I’m probably being a little generous here) attempt at using any semblance of a plot so that the film didn’t consist solely of gratuitous violence, although that might have improved it. Or maybe it was the fact that the CGI was so appalling that the blood looked like solid chunks of rock and the wolf at the beginning, well, words cannot describe it. Suffice to say that if the narrator hadn’t told us it was a wolf, we’d still be wondering what it was. All of these things combined to form a completely forgettable film and I find myself wondering how it got any reviews at all, nevermind any reviews that were positive.
Dodginess
A film consisting solely of gratuitous violence strung together with minor narrative really should score full marks on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Scale, but, seeing as how most of the combat sequences felt like repeats of the first one and the fact that if it wasn’t still light outside while I was watching it I would have fallen asleep, it only manages to score a 2. I should have realised when the film makers decided to unleash this monstrosity on the world at Comic Con and not at one of the film festivals that they realised how bad it was and tried to cover it up by doing something unusual. And it worked, they got their publicity, and won the dodgiest moment award. The second one without even trying.
Rewatchability Rating
Where some films suffer from ADD directors, and I’m thinking of Aeon Flux in particular, this one seems to have a director hopped up on series tranquilisers. Maybe, if watching the film while stoned, the slow motion sequences seem to be happening in real time, and that might have been the secret ingredient I was missing while watching. However, watching in real time was so bad that you had time to leave the room, make a cup of tea, and return before the spear had finished going through the body of a Persian soldier. But, to it’s credit, 300 just managed to avoid getting the not-so-coveted Anti-Nike and scored a 1 on the rewatchability index.
Most Memorable Quote
When you spend half the movie trying to place the voice of the Narrator, (who is the monk in Van Helsing that invents all the cool equipment), it’s not likely that you remember too many quotes. Fortunately, IMDB comes to the rescue, and a quick browse of what people think are the memorable quotes reveals that I didn’t miss too much. The onlny one that is vaguely memorable is because of the foreshadowing inherent in the quote. “Our arrows shall blot out the sun” “Then we will fight in the shade” and lets face it, it’s not a very good one.
Final Thoughts
Unless you have a morbid curiosity and insist on watching things to see if they are as bad as people tell you, or have an insatiable lust for gore, 300 can stay in the DVD case in the shop. You may want to watch it if it comes out on television and it’s free, but I am sure you will have better things to do with your time, like learning why cat bathing is considered a martial art, or if all else fails, watching paint dry. You won’t be missing anything by skipping this one.