300 (2007)

A Colossal Waste Of.... Well, Everything

- A whole bunch of my friends and family ran to the theater to see Zach Snyder's gory comic book war flick 300 when it was first released back in the spring of 2007. All of them came back with nothing but praise - apparently, I just had to see it.

So I did see it - when it came to DVD - And... I absolutely hated it. Yes folks, we are talking here about hatred. I am a fan of action films in general but 300 is not a good one.

300 is just chock-full of one big ridiculous event after another. Most of us are familiar with the historical event that the film is based on: 300 Greeks vs. thousands of Persians at Thermopylae – and while the general idea of story told in 300 is, in a nutshell, not terrible (though not historically accurate at all), everything that eventually makes it up and moves it along is terrible: from the painfully embarrassing character introductions to the bizarre Oracles and the flat love story to the homoerotic warrior bonding.

I also found the famed picture that so many had ranted and raved about to be absolutely nothing special. Hey, I am sure that the way they did it really was "revolutionary" or whatever but I just found it to be just unpleasant to look at. The film looks like someone had urinated on the original print, I'm sorry.

Plus, the vast majority of the film's featured performances are also all terrible; full of unintentionally hilarious line deliveries. Come on, how can anyone possibly keep a straight face when Gerard Butler squeals "THIS IS SPARTAAAA!"?

And for all the talk of the supposedly "revolutionary" look and a hairy Gerard Butler in a loin cloth, no other film was supposed to be able to touch the amazing, eye-popping action sequences in 300. Well, imagine my surprise when I found the action to not only be quite un-revolutionary but quite dull! Sure, there is a ton of blood and chopped limbs set to raging drop-tuned heavy metal clips - but where is the uniqueness? We have seen this kind of sword swinging testosterone mania before and have seen it done far better in films of the past.

I have the greatest suspicion that I will never know why this film continues to gather praise. For me, 300 was just a waste of film, money, talent, energy and time.


CBC Rating: 3/10