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Critics Consensus: A simple-minded but visually exciting experience, full of blood, violence, and ready-made movie quotes.
Critic Consensus: A simple-minded but visually exciting experience, full of blood, violence, and ready-made movie quotes.
All Critics (230) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (138) | Rotten (92) | DVD (25)
300 has one-dimensional caricatures who talk like professional wrestlers plugging their next feud.
A muscle-magazine fantasy crossed with a video game and an Army recruiting film.
300 was as pathetically puerile as I had expected.
It might have been one of the great all-time mad, bad movies but for one thing - it's just sooo boring.
Part of the fascination of the Thermopylae story is that it really happened, and it helped define real heroism. There's nothing remotely like reality to be had in this film.
As to this pumped-up spectacle's other aims, it's anybody's guess: selling gladiatorial chest-beating as beefcake erotica? Combining a movie and its own video-game spin-off into one package? Being both a dessert topping and a floor wax?
A highly stylised fantasy, its colour palette both lush and gloomy. Leonidas is inspiring and practical and as usual when Butler's playing someone who isn't from Scotland, 50% Scottish. Headey is terrific, put her in charge of the Ancient World right now.
What's really striking about the film is that it doesn't even have the aesthetics of a comic book, to say nothing of a graphic novel-the best examples of which, at least, show considerable concern for subtle narrative rhythms.
If you're in the mood for dumb, rousing, visceral excitement, you're not going to find anything on the big screen right now to rival it.
There is an intelligent movie to be made about Spartan warrior culture, but 300 is not it. It is a fun ride, though, as long as you don't see it on a full stomach.
Our instinctual desire to sneer at the implausibility of the story is stalled by a sense of ambition that seems unmatched even by the standards of the Hollywood assembly line.
So manly it makes Troy look like a Mary-Kate and Ashley adventure.
300' is a totally riveting masterpiece of film making. Zack Snyder, inspired by the graphic novel, has brought a 2487 year-old news story to life with people you really care about who are faced with choices between compromise and war that are all too familiar today. The breath-taking CGI images are flawlessly integrated with the live action. All the actors are excellent in their roles, and Butler IS Leonidas. The sound design is excellent. The score was recorded by the London Phil with a full chorus and is beautiful to listen to, but is very reminiscent of 'Gladiator' which detracts from the otherwise total originality of the film. This movie integrates the potentials of film-making and story-telling in a wonderful new way that is the best of both entertainment and artistic achievement. 4 Stars 9-24-07 (Updated)
Super Reviewer
Gerard Butler gives a commanding performance (the best of his career so far) as Spartan King Leonidas in this intense, surreal, epic, and beautifully shot, edited, and directed historical fantasy. Snyder has created a great and unique cinematic experience that, while not being completely historically accurate, is a wonderfully entertaining and stylish take on the Battle of Thermopylae in which a small group of Spartan warriors do battle against a vastly overwhelming number of Persians who wish to conquer them. Though this film is largely style over substance, it does have some deeper themes and what not going through it, chiefly that of fascism. You root for the Spartans, and you're rooting for fascism. Kinda like Starship Troopers though not quite as brilliant. The slow-mo gets a tad overused, and yeah, the Persians are undeniably portrayed as perhaps too fey and sibilant, but hell, this is fun, not art. I actually prefer this to the graphic novel it's based on because this has much more story and depth. All in all, a bloody good show.
Zack Snyder stays true to 300's comic book origins, and the style makes the story feel like something out of a myth. This definitely works to enhance the larger than life experience unfolding on screen. The animated blood effects make the film feel less gruesome than it could have been. A pretty solid, well rounded B-action picture.
pretty silly - world's longest video game cut scene
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