300

[emmuzka]

I went to see the movie 300. I hadn't known anything about it beforehand.

O_O . In my life have I never seen a movie such pretentious, disgusting, corny and downright fascist. It was post-produced and colored to hell and it looked like a well made computer game. It was acted like that, too.

Really. Within the first five minutes, I was like WTF? Do this movie really describe the spartan way of upbringing boys to psychopaths as smart and heroic? Does that SGI wolf seem as laughable to the others?

The actors all seemed to be chosen not based on their acting abilities but based on the state of their stomach muscles. I'll admit that those muscles were nice, but they are not a very big dramatic element when thinking about the whole movie. Oh, there was that David Wenham, that Faramir dude, but that was about it.

I was tempted to leave after an hour because of the disgusting fascist undertones, but oh well. Instead I stayed and played the "spot-that-movie" game. That field and that woman howling in the background? Gladiator! That Golum-look-alike? Lord of the Rings! Troy! Stargate! gladiator again!

At least they had the war-elephants, but they seemed to run out with the budged since they died instantly. Frank miller's bondage fetishes were also shown as the audience "impressing" women's erected nipples and mens bare asses.

Horrible, it was all horrible. I'll advice to watch it only if you are so fascinated by the half-an-hour pretty-pretty blood bath to suffer the rest hour and a half of agony :(

Comments

[mitzi007.livejournal.com]

I could have told you that. I have heard nothing about that movie that makes me want to see it.

Besides, 300's director admits using homosexuality to scare 20 year old men.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Then you can save your money. Nothing to see here. Or, well, not excately nothing. There were lots of stomach muscles.

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

Whoa.

I mean, I know we sometimes have different opinions on things, but whoa anyway. :D

Me, I liked 300. Am not saying it wasn't pompous and pretentious, but it did seem to be like that on purpose. You don't make a film like that without being aware of how the different era and morals (and the fact that while the story is old, it's from a graphic novel...) will seem to a modern person.

Haven't read the graphic novel myself (though Dlasta did show me some of it), but from what I've heard, it's been adapted on screen frame for frame in most scenes. Am not going anywhere near the whole 'being inspired by stuff' debate because it usually leads to the conclusion that everything's been written before... I personally liked the way the movie looked; it's very much like a moving painting, more visual than anything. Even the CGI wolf was intriguing in the sense that it seemed to be more a methaphorical beast than a real one.

Idolizing the 300 brave Spartans isn't really the movie's fault. They've been doing that for two and a half millenia now. The same goes for the Spartan upbringing; I remember reading about the kid who stole a fox (apparently to eat it) and then had to endure the fox gnawing at him when someone almost caught him when I was still in elementary school, and the tone of the story was more 'look how corageous' than ew sick.

But the story isn't exactly bad, like most ancient tales we don't truly comprehend. Those who don't stand and fight don't turn into legends; we only hear about the warrior heroes who sacrified everything for whatever their cause was, those who ran away don't get any credit.

Considering the propaganda that comes from the antiquities, it's no wonder they had such pompous scenes and characters and I do think the actors worked quite well within the parameters. Gerard Butler as Leonidas had the air of total insanity, making his 'bravery' more tragic. I also liked Vincent Regan in yet another skimpy outfit (he was also in Troy) and I thought Dominic West was really good at being totally slimy. Heck, I even liked Lena Headey's Gorgo. It was actually David Wenham who kind of looked out of place (with his sandy hair and all), but what the hell. I adore him as an actor, so shutting up now.

The fascism angle is kinda weird, especially when the enemy in the movie is so clearly exaggerated. Does anyone really believe that Ephialtes the traitor really looked like Gollum on steroids, or that Persians really were like that? The history of mankind is full of wars and conquerers, and it's always been about us and them and 'they' are always shown as something perverted and less than human just to make 'us' feel better.

Of course the Greek City States were fascist, especially the way we define the word these days. They all believed to be superior to the others, they all found their own way to be the right way. Therefore the fascism in the movie isn't only symbolic, it's one of the things that can actually be called historically accurate. :)

Frank Miller has issues, yeah. But hey, who am I to say nay to half naked people? Painting the heroes as beautiful and villains as ugly isn't his invention; it's simply a way to emphasize certain things and is not to be meant literally. Even though I'm sure many people wish to see this as a personal insult.

Anyway, in conclusion. I liked 300 for the same reason I thought Troy was blah. 300 isn't about the logic and reason and analytical mind of the modern day. It's about the old stories, the glorification of an insane situation that has turned into a legend over the centuries. It's not supposed to make real sense, it's supposed to touch the ID part of the mind (by Freud's definition of the structure of the mind that is).

Silly and gory and corny, yes, and to be quite honest, nowadays I tend to grin at pompous speeches before the charge unless it's Theoden King leading the charge. But I thought 300 was a good movie in its own genre, full of pathos and beauty, story about one battle in a war. Does it need to be anything beyond that?

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

The wolf was as it was because that's how Leonidas' men told the tale. Off course they would depict the wolf their leader killed as a child as something extraordinary. :)

And seriously, spartans were the people Alexander the Great (or his daddy) didn't fuck with.:)

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'd say no one fucked with the Spartans...

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

As a person who didn't know anything about the film beforehand... I think that I would have still pondered on leaving if I would have come to see oh the pretty Frank Miller comic adaptation.

I would like to think that I can fairly easy change to my wiew from realistic to artistic or whatever, but in the beginnig, when they tell the story about the king's upbringing, I was like, "how unpleasant this movie is, I'm truly not enjoying this at all" and "These guys must be all psychos" OK, that was pretty realistic and meta way of seeing the movie, so the artistic way of seeing things came true for me only in the fighting scenes. The rest of the movie was just unpleasant to watch.

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

"These guys must be all psychos"

Yup. :D

Enjoying a movie is naturally a subjective experience; if you feel it sucks, to you it sucks. It's weird how sometimes you're convinced a movie will be good and has all the elements you usually love and then it's all crap. Or vice versa.

[lumiyu.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie a few days ago and thought 'wow, that was brilliant'. Yes, it was also fascist (although I do hate that word, it's the new label for everything that people dont like), spartans were quite psycho and I don't see why any sane person would want to live in a society like that. Pretentius, epic, filled with gore and action. I felt everything was exxaggarated, made into bigger than life, uglier than life.

I didn't know they had taken the comicbook pictures and used them as direct reference, but the movie did have a very comicbook feel to it, and lot of attention was put into how it looked. How it looked, sounded and felt. The story, well, there's not much of a story there, really. 300 men go and die. :)

I can understand why others might not like the movie, but I just don't see those as the issues. Sure, persians was said to be spawns of satan and spartans the heroes of the day, better than the best and so on, but it was _spartan_ who gave that point of view.

I think everything I said was better said sua_lay above me :)

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

I thought it was quite stunning way of telling something epic. Worthy of the actual spartans, even.

Do this movie really describe the spartan way of upbringing boys to psychopaths as smart and heroic?

?
I didn't get the impression that it was portrayed as something good but instead just something that was.
That was how actual historic Sparta was. (Oddly enough, at the time spartans were quite modern in other ways.) There just wasn't room for weakness in a warrior culture. I don't see how you could do a movie about the subject without acknowledging this.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

I'm not mixing this movie with the real history of Spartans.

that said, personally I think that the Spartan Way wasn't portrayed that great in the movie. If that older fighter dude really "had one to spare" when it came to his sons, would his shattering in the field have been seen as a sign of weaknes and not courage? Why the king let the hunchback go when he knew that he had inportant info about the goat path back door?

My personal WTF was when the king and queen had sex. Why only the woman was like "oh! Oh! Oh!" and there were no other sounds? Because this movie was meant only for men?

[rikes]

I haven't seen the movie and probably won't, either, but I have to say this is a rather amusing review. :D

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Thanks ;) My only joy in the movie was to think how throughly I would slam it in my lj...

[franklymydear.livejournal.com]

I'd have to agree. I think the thing that I liked most about that movie was the nice chest shots. Pretty boys with good pecs in leather. Heh. But what was left of the "plot" was soaked in blood. Normally I can handle gratuitous violence, but I have to start with a like for the major characters, you know?

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

For time to time, I was able to turn my brain off and enjoy the pretty blood spatters and the flat stomachs. And then the "plot" went on and the whole unpleasantness of the movie jumped the wiewer.

[arye-sarin.livejournal.com]

The actors all seemed to be chosen not based on their acting abilities but based on the state of their stomach muscles

BTW, even those weren't complitely authentic. Sorry about that. ; )
Gerard Butler (Leonidas) has said in an interview that his (and others') muscles were partly fake. They were some kind of rubber extensions or something like it.

I haven't seen the movie, but the trailer was captivating and brilliant. Very artistic, but I liked a lot. Trailer doens't tell anything about movie itself though...but as trailers go, it was perfect.
If you try to forget the movie and watch just the trailer, I'd be interested to know what you thought.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/

[yavannie77.livejournal.com]

Not all rubber extensions (perhaps some of those, too), but mostly just painted on. I mean the muscles were given more definition by spray paint. :)

[arye-sarin.livejournal.com]

Whatever the method. Couldn't remember. I just remembered they weren't real. Still suffering from flu and byörb-sickness. Like that would be an excuse, but anyway..; )

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

*rushes off to buy some spray paint*

Hey, now I can wear that bikini to the beach....

[yavannie77.livejournal.com]

Oo, good idea. I might have to buy a gallon of the stuff, though... *lol*