300 (2006) – Review

Frank Miller is easily one of the most well-known comic book creators of today, and many of his works have managed to make it to the big screen, but it was when in 2005 that director Robert Rodriguez helmed the adaptation of his graphic novel Sin City that noncomic book fans took notice – its worldwide box take of over $450 million dollars can attest to that – so it’s not surprising that a year later we saw another one of his hyper-stylized graphic novels making a big splash on the big screen.

“We do 300 crunches a day to get abs like these.”

As adaptations go, this and Sin City are probably two of the more faithful to the source material to come out of Hollywood, and using the Green Screen Back Lot the filmmakers were able to translate the panels perfectly from the comic book right to the screen, but does this make it a good film? Visually, this film is stunning and the images leap off the screen in stark bold images and colours, but in the acting and writing camp things are a bit shakier. “Gerard “This is Sparta!” Butler is in full hero mode and he does his best to create this larger-than-life figure of Spartan King Leonidas but he does tend to come across as a bit over-the-top cartoony at times, while this take on Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) is more evidence that Frank Miller may have some issues with women, then there is the depiction Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) which pretty much sums up Miller’s views on certain ethnic groups.

“I’m just a sweet transvestite.”

So director Zack Snyder had to decide whether to either be faithful to the source material or simply “base” his movie on the graphic novel and then do his own thing, now, for those of you who have watched many of Snyder’s movies you must know that he doesn’t really ooze all that much in the creativity department and while no one can knock his ability to give us stunning visuals it is too often in the service of a poor script with lazy plots – his film Sucker Punch is one of the biggest WTF movies I’ve ever seen, gorgeous but it makes no sense at all – and this is kind of what makes Snyder the perfect choice as Frank Miller’s 300 is all about style over substance.

“Um, Leonidas, we kind of drink out of that well.”

Historical Accuracy: In an MTV interview Zack Snyder stated that “The events are 90 percent accurate. It’s just in the visualization that it’s crazy… I’ve shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it’s amazing. They can’t believe it’s as accurate as it is.”

I’m not sure where he found these “World-Class Historians” but thank god I never had any of them as history teachers in my school or I would have never graduated. Frank Miller has said that “The inaccuracies, almost all of them, are intentional” and I can respect that because an artist taking liberties is nothing new and I’d be hard-pressed to name “Based on True Events” movie that didn’t fudge the truth every now and then if not out and out making shit up to make a film more entertaining. So when watching these types of “historical” movies it comes down to two questions, “Did this film entertain me?” and “How dear is the subject matter to me personally?”

This Oracle is certainly easier to watch than Fox News.

When I watched Mel Gibson’s film Braveheart I’m betting my reaction was a lot different than say those of a scholar of that particular time and place, who would probably point out that all the filmmakers got right about William Wallace was that he was Scottish.  The same goes for movie 300, if you just go in with the expectation of seeing a silly over-the-top action film you will most likely leave very happy, on the other hand, if you know anything about the Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae your feelings may differ greatly.

Below are a few things that bothered me and not all of them have to do with his historical accuracy:

• 7,000 Greeks marched to block the path at Thermopylae. Leonidas and his 300 were an important part of that army, crucial when they found themselves outflanked, he and his men stayed to guard the rear, but they certainly weren’t as depicted in this movie.
• Leonidas killing the Persian ambassador does not make him a badass it makes him a bad politician and a leader. It also means that any ambassador you send out into the world has the life expectancy of a mayfly.
• The Ephors were not leprous deformed priests who got handed drugged virgins for their pleasure, they were elected citizens of Sparta.
• Leonidas gives great speeches about not kneeling to Persia, as they will not give up their freedom, yet Sparta was a slave state so he was basically talking about his citizen’s freedom and not the thousands of slaves that do all the work while they are off fighting.
• Leonidas goes on and on about how awesome the “phalanx fighting formation” is and why one hunchbacked soldier could ruin the whole thing, but in this movie, they stay in that formation for about half a minute before running willy-nilly into battle.  As outnumbered as they were this should have resulted in them being slaughtered rather quickly.
• Leonidas makes a crack about the Athenians being “Boy Lovers” but many scholars cite Sparta as the first city-state to formalize pederasty where a pubescent boy would enter a sexual relationship with an older male mentor.
• I do wish the Persian army, in fact, had giants, vampires, and arm-bladed mutants.

“Welcome to Xerxes Side Show of Wonders!”

Zack Snyder does do a clever thing with his film’s ending, having us find out that the narrator of this movie is Dillios (David Wenham) and that he is “recounting” the story of the Battle of Thermopylae to his troops who are about to go into battle themselves, which makes the entire movie a propaganda story and thus completely excusing any and all inaccuracies. I must admit, that’s kinda brilliant.

With this film, Frank Miller and Zack Snyder created a visual feast for fans of action and spectacle, sadly, it is not a very fair representation or very accurate look at history, that said, it is still better than its sequel 300: Rise of an Empire.

Somewhere the wolf is still circling the boy.