Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
3/13/07
Napoleon once said that history
is a set of lies agreed upon by the winners: tall tales that amplify
heroism, intensify the threats that were overcome and vilify the losers
beyond all recognition. Exaggerated tales of the (sometimes recent,
sometimes ancient) past are told to rally nations to war and rally soldiers
to victory. Through such a prism of outsized heroism and impossible
villainy, writer-director Zack Snyder has adapted Frank Miller's graphic
novel about the famous Battle of Thermopylae . 300 is an outrageous
exercise in pure testosterone, its' every frame reaching for a transcendent
coolness that often lies just beyond its' grasp. Although about a
half hour too long, it's still a wild, exciting and utterly unique adventure
chock full of quotable dialog.
The story (and this is very
important to understanding its' intent) is a campfire tale told by one-eyed
warrior Dilios (David Wenham). It's 480 B.C., and the city-states
of Greece face a threat from the East: the Persian Empire of the
“God-King” Xerxes I (Rodrigo Santoro) has sent emissaries demanding gifts
of “Earth and Water” to demonstrate submission to his rule. King
Leonidas (Gerard Butler), the mighty Spartan warrior, will not submit,
and tosses Xerxes' men down a well. From that moment, it is only
a matter of time before the God-King unleashes his seemingly endless armies
upon Sparta. Clearly, the Spartan army must be raised, but misshapen
high priests and their oracles declare that there must be no battle during
the upcoming Carneian Festival. Because defying the oracles is against
Spartan law, Leonidas has no choice but to hand-pick 300 of his finest
warriors and march toward the pass of Termopylae, where he's confident
the close quarters will eliminate Xerxes' numerical advantage. Meanwhile,
his wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) struggles to win over the Senate, and
particularly the evil Senator Theron (Dominic West, practically dripping
oil onto the sets). Joined by Athenian soldiers not nearly
so skilled as they, Leonidas's forces dig in and prepare for battle, turning
away a decrepit hunchback Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan), who seeks to join
them. From the East come Xerxes forces: the masked Immortals,
rhinos and elephants, and an army of a million slaves whose very movement
causes the ground to shake. The battle is on.
Is it ever! 300's
fight sequences are not only stunning and exciting, but they accomplish
the seemingly impossible goal of making it seem like each of this small
group of men could honestly fell attackers by the hundreds. Snyder
wisely stages much of the fighting in slow-motion so we can soak it all
in: at full speed, the skill of the Spartans would seem positively
absurd. To keep things interesting, he mixes up the Persian forces
to create something akin to The Warriors with real warriors: archers
rain millions of arrows on the Spartans, the Immortals are literally inhuman
beneath their masks, Persian traitors are punished by a giant blob of a
man with swords for arms, and Xerxes himself is at least eight feet tall.
It's war as Grimm's Fairy Tales, literally Legend unfolding before our
eyes. Even the look of the movie, a stunning palate of browns, grays
and reds which consists almost entirely of special effects, is like the
past seen through a dreamy haze of imagination. Some shots are so
aggressively posed that they must be echoing Miller's comic book compositions,
but unlike Sin City, the earlier adaptation of his work, 300
doesn't seem to be aiming for replication of the graphic novel experience
so much as to stylistically represent the kind of unimaginable courage
that inspired him to write about the 300 Spartans in the first place.
As history buffs know, the
“freedom” the Spartans were fighting for wasn't exactly the kind we enjoy:
plucked from their mothers at an early age, Spartan boys were put through
a torturous regimen of training to make them the warriors they would become.
But even that beats the hell out life of slavery, death and depravity that
awaited those under Xerxes rule. While the movie inevitably flatters
the Spartan experience, I was glad it didn't go too far to water down the
cruel nature of the time. Blood, gore, nudity and freak show deformity
run wild.
Between Miller, Snyder, co-writers
Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon, and the historical record (yes, someone
really did respond to “Our arrows will blot out the sun” with “Then we
will fight in the shade”.), the film crackles with wonderfully shoutable
dialog. Although my friends look at me like a madman for doing so,
I still can't resist looking for occasions to say “Madness?!? This
IS SPARTA!” or “The thousand nations of the Persian Empire are upon you!”
There really aren't any good occasions to yell “Tonight we dine in Hell!”,
but I'll stay on the lookout. Gerard Butler's courageous lung capacity
alone makes this perhaps his finest performance. Tyler Bates matches
the tone with one of the most bombastic (and I mean that in a good way)
scores I can remember: overall, this is probably the loudest movie
I've ever seen.
But it's not all cool yelling
and disembowelment: there's a fair amount more fighting than dramatic
momentum can sustain and the Senate subplot, however wonderful West's diabolical
performance
is, does little other than satisfy the need to give a woman a major role
(as usual, Headey is relentlessly average). The warriors, while all
likable enough, also lack that extra dimension that would have made their
lives and deaths truly moving.
300 is no classic,
but it does deliver the stylized action and ferocious coolness the ads
promise. Zach Snyder has constructed a fascinating post-modern prism
through with to observe a famous moment in Greek history, one well worth
reading up on after the final line of dialog has been screamed. |
