300

Posted by Luis dos Santos (ldossantos@gmail.com) on April 3, 2007

Modern cinema seems to have found in the cinematographic adaptation of well known comics (such as Batman begins, X-men and many others) a new audience for its blockbusters, avid of fast-paced action and eye-catching visuals. Frank Miller’s works (Sin City, and now 300), characterized by very stark visuals and compelling story lines, comes as a perfect source of material for director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead).

300 is based on the battle of Thermopylae which took place in 480 B.C., where an over matched combined Greek force of approximately 4,000 (including 300 Spartans) held off advancing Persians under King Xerxes.

Gerard Butler (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The cradle of Life, Beowulf & Gredel) and Lena Headey (The Cave, The Brothers Grimm) play the Spartan royal couple, King Leonidas and Queen Gorgo. Butler makes a credible representation of his character, showing anger and fury in key moments of the battle and also good wits, but apart form that the character remains relatively flat. Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro (Os Desafinados), as the megalomaniacal and slightly homosexual Persian king Xerxes, was not able to bring much life to his character either. Dominic West and David Wenham give a good support for their counterparts by following in the line of their dull performances.

Zack Snyder tells the story in the epic style through the voice-over of one of the characters who took place in the events. The lines delivered by some of the characters are so stylized that they feel unrealistic, making the whole film look like a theatrical play.

The plot line here is quite thin. Several Persians die, a few Spartans get slightly injured. Re-iterate the process for the next one and half hour, adding short breaks where political aspects of the war are discussed, and you have the plot of 300. However, the movie carries a subjacent worrying message: the western Spartans are portrait as strong, beautiful, well trained and keepers of freedom, whereas the eastern Persian invaders are depicted as a low-culture barbaric horde with ugly, twisted bodies and dubious sexual orientation.

In contrast to the the dark, retro film-noir mood of Sin City, 300’s photography surrounds the audience with a colorful pallet of red, brown and dark yellow tones, a clear allegory to the smothering presence of war and death.

Special credits should be given to William Hoy for the editing, which was well used to control the pace of the movie, speeding up and slowing down in several key moments of the movie to allow the spectator to follow the action and increasing the dramatic effect of the well choreographed battles.

The director doesn’t really do much for the story line or character development (the 1962 film The 300 Spartans might be a good complement to this point). It just shows how 300 persons managed to confront a much larger army, all this warped in leading edge visual effects. This goes in the line with some other recent comics adaptations (as for example in Renaissence), where the director seems more focused to explore the capabilities of technology in detriment of developing the narrative and other cinematographic aspects further.

300 delivers what it promises, but not much more.

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