No alarms and no surprises, please.

Friday, March 09, 2007

300

Extremely Succinct Review: Holy Fucking Shit!

Less Succinct Review: Audacious and Pretentious. You may not love it, but you've never seen anything like it. No scene is a throw away, at least visually. Each is filmed like it is a decadent fashion ad, even the ones featuring decapitated heads flying in the air or charging armored rhinos. This is movie isn't eye-candy, it's eye-porn. It assaults your senses on the screen and through its wicked soundtrack.

Many have tried to look at this as an allegory for the quagmire in Iraq. To them, I say, "Bah, you're waaay overthinking this flick" Indeed, you will hear words that will echo those of politicians on both sides. But making some kind of statement? I don't see it that way at all, and I really looked. I see it as a story of a principled rebellion. The creepy androgynous and strangely super-tall Xerxes trying to negotiate with the austere, chiseled, principled and honorable Spartans. I just can't see a way to fit that into the War on Terrah(tm).

How's the plot? There is one, I won't recount it here and like most porn, it's the least interesting thing about what you're watching. You won't and shouldn't see this movie for that. You'll see this for stunning visuals, the avalanche of action and the performance of Gerard Butler, who enters the pantheon of celluloid ass-kickers with his portrayal of Leonides.

Rundown

Favorite scene: the big mutant dude.
Scene that sucked: the senate
Gratuitous Naked Chicks: Check!
Gratuitous Naked Man Ass: Um, Check.
Thing that annoyed me in the theater: Stupid Bitch behind me that felt the need to tell all of us that she didn't agree with a particular choice of the queen because she felt it was sexist. She's lucky I didn't pull a Leonides on her punk ass.
RATING: 4.5 of 5 Possible Couches.