bramn.history

Screaming Spartans

Finally the first movie in theaters this year I definitely wanted to see on big screen instead of a tiny home TV set. 300 is the story about euhm... 300 Spartans who fought to the death to make a point! What point you think? Well to wake up the politicians in Sparta and the rest of Greece and convince them to fight back against King Xerxes and his Persian army.

Don't expect a history lesson from 300, expect a movie about honour and glory, soldiers and armies, blood and flesh. It all starts pretty rough with children beating each other and thrown into icy woods. Shocking scenes to tell the audience that Spartan men are soldiers by heart and profession. Not just a blacksmith coincidentally picking up a spear.

It doesn't take long after that for the real battle to start. King of Sparta, Leonidas, definitely read Sun Tzu's Art of War as he knows where and how to defend and attack. Fortunately all the fighting doesn't get boring as one might expect watching a movie all just about one battle. Different kind of attack waves are thrown at the Spartans. Infantry, cavalry, an impressive literally shadowing wave of arrows, and some other tactics I'm not gonna tell here.

The fighting and slaughtering scenes are nicely done and resembles a certain comic style (which is what 300 was based on) with a lot of blood sputters flying around. There are some Matric like slow motions and rotations in there too, but not so it looks out of place or unoriginal. There is a slight parallel story in the movie, which tells how the queen tries to convince the politicians at home in Sparta to send their entire army to battle the Persians. Nothing too fancy there, except that she knows how to resolve certain disputes.

Only the actors, by the way, are real, all the rest is CGI and special effects and shot in front of blue and green scenes. This way the director could throw his entire imagination at it and this definitely can be seen. Real 'wow' and impressive scenes in there, too bad though that most of them can already be viewed by watching the trailer. Maybe the biggest spoiler of them all.

All in all a great movie and definitely one to go and see in theaters! If you don't like chopped off heads, half naked men (that sounded gay), lots of blood or war in general, then DON'T go and see it. Want a sneak-peek first to find out if you'll like it or not? Go watch the 300 trailer on Apple.com