Movies 2008 #13 300

300 : I have a few notes to get out of the way:

• I haven’t seen a movie (any movie) in nearly a month. That sucks. It’s the downside of being in demand, I guess. Good with the bad, or something like that…
• I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see this movie. Seriously. I lerved the comic it was drawn from and the style of it looked pretty mesmerizing. Still it took me a year to actually sit down and watch this film. Someone shoot me.
• After a good pace to start the year, my movie watching pace has slowed considerably and I’m going to have to step it up a little bit to meet even my meager movie-a-week goal. I used to have weekend where I saw more movies than I’ve seen this year.

Sigh.

As for this movie in specific- hell yeah.

A pitch-perfect adaptation of Miller’s classic graphic novel, 300 is a violent maelstrom of testosterone. The look of this film evokes the lush feel of the comic pages produced by Miller and Lynn Varley and manages to heighten them with excellent cinematography, visual effects, solid editing and truly marvelous action direction choreography.

Telling the story of 300 Spartans holding a tiny pass against a horde of Persian invaders, 300 takes that simple set-up and manages to pad it out to nearly two hours of seat gripping, rah-rah excitement.

All that said, I’ll be the first to admit it’s not for everyone. It’s basically two hours of killing and screaming (stylishly executed), which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (although it is mine.) Also, if you’re the type to analyze a film for sociological/political/sexual messages you poke around the edges it’s pretty easy to find something disagreeable within the borders of this particular universe.

Still, I can’t say I’ve had as good a time watching a movie in a long while, so for my money it’s a winner.