300 Hours Later

Ever since the movie 300 appeared in theaters I've been tempted to either to go the theater and see it, or buy it on DVD, or in some way devote some small percentage of my relatively scant disposable income on it.

Good thing I didn't, for it blows chunks. It proved to be such a disappointment it made Troy seem pretty good, and words cannot convey just how sad that is.

Let's take care of some business first. Yes, I know it's based on a Frank Miller comic book. Yes, I know it's not supposed to be a serious study of warfare, diplomacy and sociology in Classical Antiquity - and that's a good thing, because it's such a laugh as history it would actually hurt if they intended for it to be taken seriously. So - yes, I know it's a fantasy based on a comic book, and no, I don't expect it to make even the most superficial or cursory of gestures toward historical accuracy.

So we'll leave history and accuracy entirely out of the picture and try the movie on and see how it feels. It feels slow and boring, actually. The movie consists of four parts. The first part is deep, manly shouting and speechifying that makes Henry V seem positively subtle. The second part is stylistic flim-flammery loving rendered in sepia-toned Super-Tedium Slow Motion. The third part is Classical Antiquity's answer to The Matrix, only with Spartans pulling off Neo-like wirefighting moves in Super-Dooper-Tedium Slow Motion (tm). The fourth part is... I forgot. Nipples, I guess. Lots and lots of nipples in this movie. Oh, wait, I remember, meaningless voice-over delivered in Portentious Voice.

Sin City and 300 were both written originally by Frank Miller. Why did I really like Sin City and really dislike 300? Because the characters in Sin City at least seemed like passable simulacrums of real people and I came to care about some of them. The voice-over made sense, the characters, however surreal, at least seemed convincing, and one had the feeling that one was watching a story about people. On the other hand, I didn't give a rat's ass about any of the characters in 300 and didn't care if they lived, died, or ran out of skin bronzer. Sin City was very stylish, but the movie hadn't forgotten that it was the characters that were important. 300 was just stylish, with nothing behind it. It was, basically, about as emotionally involving as an underwear ad.

I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be actually boring, but it is. I'm glad I didn't pay money to see it.