I loved it. They definitely studied Gladiator which is one of my favourite movies. Also, the action actually lived up to the trailer which is rare these days.
And for the custo twist, how about the background during the closing credits? Frames of that would make some wicked wallpapers.
I think that visually the movie was amazing. I cannot tell you enough how much I loved the lighting and style of the whole thing.
However, I don't think it was all that impressive as far as the story and character development. The action was up there with Braveheart and Gladiator, but it needed more depth.
With that said, I will definitely be buying this when it comes out.
I read a review of the movie... doesn't look that good:
"There are many reasons to see 300. Maybe you're a 14-year old with a love of violent entertainment. Or you're a classics professor who longs to get a splitting headache. Or possibly you're an experimental gay pornographer, and want to see the newest techniques in ab-oiling." [...] "Speech pathologists may go to 300 to witness how the two-syllable word 'Sparta' can be quadrupled in length and extended even moreso with each bellowed repetition."
By the way ikonoklast, those may be discouraging but they don't talk about the movie's plot, direction, visual styling, or any logical reason at all to why the movie was bad. It seems more like it's just simply poking fun at the movie.
Every bad review I've seen for this film is done by a reviewer who misses the god damn point.
I don't understand why a war movie needs metaphors for our current situation or some kind of anti-war sentiment slipped in just to make you feel better.
I'm in agreement with Aero's and enfusion's view of how reviews have been commenting moreso on things relative to the movie instead of analyzing it for it's entertainment and artistic values.
I mean no disrespect, colossus72, and I say this without presenting my personal views on whether or not it has links with The War in Iraq [or whether there was intention to depict the Persians as "barbarians"], but I had taken the speculation for it's supposed links with the war to be comment on how the movie had been put into production around 3 months after the war broke-out. I comment on the movie, not the graphic novel.
In my view, it's a depiction of the crucifix right in front of Leonidas which occurs right before an ultimate sacrifice is made [crucifix can be recognized as a symbol for purity and ultimate sacrifice]. I thought that might tie in with comment on the accusations of the movie portraying the Spartans as holy in contrast with Persians.
havent seen it, i'll just wait for the dvd so i can torrent it...however, i did read the graphic novel which inspired the movie, and it didnt disappoint.
The movie is a perfect frame by frame, word by word adaptation of the graphic novel, which I'm guessing you've never read. What one means, the other means. The time in which each are released to the public means little, other than Miller sat on his intellectual property until he was positive he could control it.
Also, if you read Miller's other books, you'd see he usually has very little positive to say about the how the modern Western world or fanatics operate.
But it isn't word-for-word. They've added a whole subplot into the movie surrounding the queen. They talked about this on the official website videos. Why would the time mean little? Miller had not complete control over when it could be put forth into production. Making a movie of a $65 million budget requires decisions being made on behalf of studios (Icestorm Studios in Montreal) , production companies (Warner Bros.), and others [focus is on production companies].
It's true that I haven't read anything by Frank Miller, but I've heard from those involved in the production of the movie (even Frank Miller himself commented on how Zach Snyder took a different approach to it which he found enlightening) that it hasn't stayed 100% acurate with the graphic novel.
