A VALENTINE TO VIOLENCE (YES IT IS in caps) is how the BBC review 300. Other reviews I have now read also praise this film. My initial reaction to leaving the Cinema was that it was rotten! Having loved the original 300 Spartans (as well as any other epic that usually appears on a Sunday afternoon when there is no sport to show) I went to see the new release out of tribute. This was my first mistake.
Don’t go see this film because you want to see an update or remake (precisely the same with The Italian Job). This new version owes more to the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller than the original film, or maybe even history itself. So, it was my fault! Some of the creatures, voices, slow mo’s were bizarre/ridiculous, causing laughter a plenty!
I don’t think our fellow audience members took too kindly to the loud chuckling that rose from me and my pal, especially during that “sex” scene, or the occasional Sean Connery impressions. The constant remarks that “that is like Gladiator/LotRs/Braveheart * (* delete as appropriate) only added to our misunderstanding of the intended masterpiece…
As the BBC reviewer states:
300 is not a complicated film. It’s going to be widely ridiculed and rightly so, because viewed with the slightest critical distance it becomes extremely funny, but taken on it’s own terms – as Greek myth meets Looney Tunes – it’s kind of a masterpiece.
I thought 300 was hillarious, great fun. It’s gone down really well among my crowd precisely because, aside from the addition of the Queen’s subplot, the film is pretty faithful to the comic: not just in terms of dialogue but in terms of some of the actual shots being taken from its panels. Everybody having a different accent was a bit of a distraction though.