...yells the
fearless King Leonidas toward the beginning of 300, a movie
so filled with testosterone you’d think it was made by a pro
wrestler. It wasn’t, but this is a stylish, intense movie with
enough primitive barbarism and female nudity to make every guy in
the audience whisper “awesome” under his breath, and enough
hyper-violence to make most of the women hide their eyes.
Leonidas (Gerard
Butler) is a proud man who’s been raised to fight and never
surrender, but in 480 B.C. his Spartan kingdom is threatened by the
expanding Persian Empire led by the “God King” Xerxes (Rodrigo
Santoro). Although grossly outnumbered, the 300 men in the Spartan
army (all of whom have six-pack abs and muscles bursting through
their armor) believe that death on the battlefield in service to
Sparta is the greatest glory a soldier can achieve, so on to face
the vast Persian army in the Battle of Thermopylae they go.
For a movie filled
with Neanderthals fighting to the death, the strategy employed by
Leonidas is quite ingenious: He draws the Persians into a narrow
passageway between a cliff and the sea, which greatly diminishes the
Spartans’ disadvantage in numbers. While Leonidas, his captain
(Vincent Regan) and the rest of his men fight, his wife (Lena Headey)
tries to convince the duplicitous Theron (Dominic West) and other
senators to send more help to the battlefield.
What’s interesting
— and, to an extent, disappointing — is that the bravery and valor
displayed on the battlefield here could not happen today, at least
not in the same way. Were this modern warfare, bombs would be
launched from afar that could promptly eliminate the small Spartan
militia. Machine guns would make them easy targets within 100 yards,
not to mention the damage that could be done by a plane crossing
overhead. The Spartans would no doubt have a response of their own,
but it would be a feeble substitute for their strength in
hand-to-hand combat.
And what glorious
combat it is. Director Zack Snyder has taken Lynn Varley and Frank
Miller’s (Sin City) graphic novel and brought it to
deliriously violent life. With the rustic, almost coarse visual
style and slow-motion action sequences that look like images
directly lifted from the page, the movie is a surrealistic marvel
that boldly pushes the boundaries of modern filmmaking.
Similar to the way
Robert Rodriguez made Sin City, Snyder filmed the actors in
front of a blue screen in Montreal and then digitally created the
backgrounds, rain, etc. The process has resulted in the inclusion of
a visual effect in just about every shot, but what’s overlooked is
the difficulty the actors face in making their roles convincing.
Often without props or anything to work with besides one another,
the cast is wholly believable, with passion and courage to spare.
And for a movie in which machismo reigns supreme, Headey stands out
with a particularly strong performance as the Spartan queen.
Delivering exactly
as advertised, 300 is a wonderful jolt of energy for the
traditionally slow month of March. This movie is just plain cool.
Comments? E-mail
dhudak22@yahoo.com.
300
***
Directed by Zack
Snyder. Written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon;
based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Starring
Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, Vincent Regan. Rated R.
Also opening in
Miami-Dade County this Friday: Breaking and Entering, Gray
Matters, The Italian, The Ultimate Gift.
