300 Reviewed and loved...

... however:

I give it 4.5/5, but I do so based on the movie it is... and not what it might have been:

Amazingly visual. Disappointingly poor adaptation.

This film had everything at its disposal to make perfection. Money. But, unfortunately, they didn't quite get it.

You can read the plot summary on your own. Basically, the story goes thusly: Due to Spartan law, the king is unable to take the full force of his highly trained (read, from birth) army to face a massive Persian force numbering in the 100's of thousands. He merely takes a small handful, 300, to try and stop the advance of this multi-continental force by hole-ing up in a small mountain pass that eliminates the numerical advantage of their enemy. It's based, albeit very loosely, on true historical recordings. The film is an adaptation of the Frank Miller's fantastic comic.

I'll focus first on the positives: Visceral visuals. Violent and powerful shooting, excellent effects, and more (gruesome) sound than the human brain should process. There's something to be said for the current trend of big budget green screens. That something is: WOW! It's incredibly immersive, there's nary a point in the movie that you don't feel convinced that the things on screen are real, even when you know they cannot be. The sound comes at you from every direction, and in the extremely well choreographed fight scenes (the majority of the film), the sounds of blades rending flesh and bones being crushed are amazing.

The character design is also spot on, and translates well from the original books. There's more than a few moments where you'll wish you could pause it on the big screen just to examine some strangely disfigured creature, or amazingly detailed animal. The costumes are also astounding, while the Spartans merely sport red capes and leather bikini briefs, the Persians are well adorned with Jewelry and armor as are the animals. The most amazing is the "God King Xerxes", whose costume is as dazzling as his stature (which I would guess at around 8 feet).

The negatives, however, are a bit more problematic. It's hard to really settle on the problems, because they aren't really consistent throughout the film.

There are bits of dialogue that you'll hear, and you'll regret them for the writers. There's a sub story involving the romance between the Spartan King and his Queen that goes more or less unnoticed, although it seems as though they wanted it to be a pivotal plot device. There's a plus / minus point, depending on your point of view, in that there's a near soft-core like pornographic sex scene that really does nothing to further the story in any way, but does give the viewer a few moments of visual carnal knowledge that's hard not to "enjoy".

By far, my biggest complaint is the pace. It seemed as though the actual story component of the movie was rushed, or possibly cut, in favor for the massive battles. The battles are amazing to behold, and you still feel very much compelled by the Spartan's plight, but, there are pieces of the puzzle that feel like they're missing.

A great example would be the size of Sparta itself. They focus so very narrowly on merely the king at the beginning of the film. When he takes his handful of Spartans, the 300 to which the title refers to, you get the 'impression' that this is a small number compared to those which might be at his control. They explain why he's taking a small number, but not very well, and you really have no sense of the size of the Spartan army until the very end. Perhaps that was the intent, but, none-the-less, it seems as though you might feel more impressed if you knew from the beginning that his numbers COULD have been 10,000 strong, and, even facing armies that out number them 6 to 1, this would have been an adequate figure to do some damage to King Xerxes masses. As a matter of fact, the movie does a terrible job depicting the actual size of Sparta in general, in the beginning, when an messenger from the Persians comes, you see what seems like the entire city of Sparta, all 27 of them.

Are these things enough to make the movie 'bad'? NO! It's an excellent film, even if just for the incredibly detailed visual immersion. But, for those that are going in looking for a powerful story, historical reference, or even just Sin City 2, you'll be horribly disappointed.

It's a movie that I loved for what it was. And, I recommend that everyone do the same.