300 (2007).
Comic book with a soundtrack.
Directed by: Zack Snyder.
Writing credits: Frank Miller (Graphic novel).
Starring: Gerard Butler, Dominic West.
300 is a transformation of the Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name published in 1999 into a digital movie with a techno soundtrack. This is a tale of 300 Spartans who fought about a million Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Led by King Leonidas these 300 soldiers fought for the glory by making a phalanx at the entrance of a mountain pass over three days.
300 is quite a graphic film directed by Zack Snyder who previously created Dawn of the Dead. Some of the scenes like the one when Leonidas rejects the offer of earth and water or the blinking of a wolf’s eyes in the dark or the rhino killing sequence are directly creditable to Mr Snyder. But then his direction tries to make an epic but fails at the urge of creating an actual portrayal of Frank Miller’s vision on a big screen. When I saw The making of 300 the filmmakers evidently mentioned the idea to make a movie almost similar to the comic book images used as story boarding for quite a few scenes. That limited the scope of not just directing but also screenwriting for Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad. While watching the movie there seemed no sympathy to the urge of glory of the 300 Spartans. Not to ignore cheesy romantic dialogues between Leonidas and Queen Gorgo. Key scenes have limited words. Mr Miller himself has claimed to have changed the history to make it look cooler. The battle scene dialogues between fellow Spartans sound like conversation between a bunch of college kids watching a Monday Night football game at a local Hooters. Also there is quite a fascination with flesh exposure in the movie. There is squirting of blood throughout. But what is missing is a solid story-telling. This would make this a mediocre movie watching experience.
Acting department doesn’t have much scope. Everyone required to be on an adrenaline rush which is probably why they scream their ‘glorious’ dialogues, say for instance ‘Tonight we dine in hell’ or ‘This is Spartan’. Rather one thing the actors were expected to have was ’six-pack abs’ and they all count six each. Well if you just expect about 2 hours of entertainment then this is a movie that looks and sounds cool.
Do not go to the theatres. But do watch it on an HD pay-per-view to experience the fascinating use of colors and sound.
My rating: 4/10.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
This movie was fun…and some scenes were damn good. But sometimes the movie gave an unnatural feel because of its comic book feel. I mean the battle sequences were very good, but they were not natural ala Gladiator. On the whole, I enjoyed it.
= Frankly speaking, I slept through half of this movie. The computer generated colors and sets around the actors was fine and enchanting upto a certain point, but it got tiring. Those heavy hammer your head till it hurt dialogues were gruelling to hear over and over again (”THIS IS SPARTAAAAAA”)… Loved the battle scenes but that’s it… I’m not big on Frank Miller’s graphic novels (didn’t enjoy Sin City either)… the novels do have a huge fan following but the way this adaptation is shown on screen had me snoring on and off.
i disagree whole-heartedly. watch this one in theaters for pure visual delight. better yet, watch it in an IMAX theater near you if it’s releasing in one. the battle scene conversation sounds like college kids watching a monday night football game?? which scene are you talking about boss? the whole movie is a glorified battle scene, and righteously so.
as for the adrenaline rush, these were 300 spartans going up against a million persians, like you said yourself. if they didn’t have the adrenaline, they wouldn’t even have made it out of sparta!
next, dialogue delivery on leonidas’ part. he’s talking to 300 spartans or an entire city. what do you want him to do? whisper to his second-in-command and have him play “pass the word” to the entire army?
finally, the six-pack abs. looks like you missed the prologue of the story. these men were raised to be warriors from day one. thus leonidas in his young age battling the elements and the wolf. they were trained vigorously to be warriors on behalf of their nation, and when you train from that young an age to be a warrior, you don’t go into battle with a beer gut. remember leonidas’ line when he and his spartans meet their allies where the so-called “army” is made up of blacksmiths, potters etc.. he says “spartans, what is your profession?” to which their response is a charged up war-cry and leonidas says to the leader “looks like i have brought more warriors than you”.
i’m glad this movie didn’t pretend to be anything more than what it was marketed to be. it was marketed as a visual treat, and who can say it wasn’t? it was marketed as a straight-up, no holds-barred war movie, and who can say it wasn’t? i agree, the cheesy love scenes with the queen weren’t needed, but in a movie where it’s 300 six-packed testosterone-and-adrenaline-filled dudes on a killing spree, i’m not going to complain about one naked woman.
watch this movie. 8/10.
@ Oz ” I
forgot to mention the story.. honestly, i didn’t watch this one for the story, but coming out of the theater, i did feel like it didn’t have a real story to it. account my 8/10 for the visuals and average it with 6/10 for the story. overall 7/10.
Striker I understand,
may be I can try and say what I felt was missing by my experience with Kate Beckinsale’s UNDERWORLD. yes, it had as good color schemes as 300, though blue tinge throughout it did match the ambience, and also the background score was pushing my adrenaline, the difference is UNDERWORLD gets you engaged all the time thats what a movie should do. In 300, you get connected and disconnected all the time. The movie did not create a constant ambience to hold on to.
When I said that it sounded like a college kids talk, by that I meant it was meant to change the usual mythical sounding feel, which suits at some occassions and doesnt at some other.
six-pack abs was something that was expected and they all had it. it was a compliment.
If I had to just get my adrenaline pumping then may be I will buy 300’s soundtrack and watch little war clips on youtube but not buy the DVD as a part of my collection like i own UNDERWORLD and will suggest people to rather get an HD pay-per-view for $3.99 for the whole family instead of spending $8 per person.
LOL!!! I am so glad someone mentioned the six-pack abs. Because, throughout the entire movie, I kept wondering if that was a CGI effect…
Yes, that is where my mind kept wandering to whenever people in the film started talking.
Because while the battle scenes were for the most part fun, any time someone opened their mouths to have a conversation, I was struggling to stay awake.
I just read a review on another site, and someone mentioned that this was “Action Porn”, and meant it as a compliment.
I agree.
Too bad I don’t like porn or most action movies…
But, if you like action movies, then this is a must see.
If you can tolerate lousy dialoge and cool action sequences just to see how the amazing rendering of the film in digital (if you are a camera geek), go see this film.
Otherwise, don’t even bother with the DVD…
havent seen the film yet. but the promo looks intersting. m not big fan of all these kind of movies. so will skip it.
like any othr movie 300 is also one! some might like it some might not, like lord of the rings some will spend hours talking about the ring and golum, some will say it was a piece of shit and didnt deserve an oscar! when anybody is making a film based on a book,may it be peter jackson and lotr,or zack snyder and 300(frank miller) they start it cauze the book fascinated them,they chooose a certain style and make it accordingly,and people(audience) with similar interests like it, ppl who dont like it have their own favourite directors and movies made by them to talk about all day long ,like jateen ,apparently he is fond of vampires and devils ,it seems you cant force him 300 6 pck guys wearing red capes and leather underwears,no he likes kate in latex and leather wear wid canines! no insult to u jateen just trying to make a point!
folks,
check out this amazing collection of before-and-after fx shots that apparently made 300 a visual delight it is!
http://www.pixelmagicfx.com/features/300/300pt1.htm
the best part is the animated gif which replays the process by adding layer after layer.
gotta watch this flick for its tech wizardry if nothing else.
and WHAT love scenes between leonidas and the queen? Is it not a frame/frame remake of comics? :o