300 4/5 reviewed by Corey

Throughout the movie, I kept telling myself, "You shouldn't like this. Don't let all this superficial CGI stuff get in the way of your reviewing the movie as an intelligent, seriously underpaid movie critic. Just because the graphics are neat doesn't make it a good film."

I came out of the theatre with a massive grin on my face. I haven't been so satisfied with an action movie since...uhm...yeah...on to the review?

If Frank Miller's 300 were an epic (and it isn't), I would have seriously knocked it for the flaws it has. Do not go into 300 expecting a historically accurate representation of the Spartan's fight with the Persians at Thermopylae. I'll get the stuff I didn't enjoy out of the way first, though, because there are a couple elements of the film that make up for it, so much so that I thought it still deserved a four.

If you saw any of the trailers and thought, like me, "I hope they don't use slow-motion as much in the movie as they do in this", be prepared. The movie, from beginning to end, capitalizes on the ability to slow the action down. At points, it seems narcissistic and pointless, as if Snyder fell back on it because he didn't have the ability to literally pop his head out of the screen and say "Watch this, look how pretty it all is!" It gets kinda old in some of the action sequences. The movie watches more like a videogame plays. I half expected a combo indicator to show up at one point, or a Spartan to start glowing some strange color.

The story is almost non-existent. I would normally suggest anyone who doesn't know about the Battle of Thermopylae to read up beforehand, but it doesn't really matter. Another reviewer put it perfectly: you don't go to Hooters for the wings - no matter what you tell wifey - and you didn't come to 300 for the plot nuances. The enemies are sometimes laughably silly-looking and the dialogue sometimes comes off as more epic than the movie can back up. My only major gripe with the action scenes was the disappearance of blood after it flies through the air in slow-motion. It was noticeably strange to me. There is so much flying around when people get killed, but...where does it all go?!?

I'm nit-picking. If you want to see some awesome, violent fight scenes, 300 is the way to go. It is far and away the most visually arresting film I've seen since...well...Frank Miller's Sin City. I never saw Renaissance or A Scanner Darkly. The costumes are cool, the gore is cool (the first time I saw Leonidas cut a guy's leg off, my eyes went big and my mouth was hanging open), the Spartans are cool. Everything about this movie is cool. If you have the chance to see it on DLP (in Arkansas, it costs a first-born child for a ticket to the Rave) make sure to take it. I saw it on a standard screen and it was stunning.

If you're a guy, go see it. You'll most likely really enjoy it for the same reasons I did. It's beautifully portrayed over-the-top action (the battle scenes evoked the same "holy crap" that I got watching the lobby scene from the first Matrix) and it's wonderfully produced. Again, don't expect an epic, but don't be surprised to come out very, very satisfied nonetheless.