300 (2007)

300  (2007)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Zack Snyder
    Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham,
    Dominic West, Michael Fassbender, Rodrigo Santoro
In the 5th century B.C., young Spartan boys train to be hardened warriors. The future King Leonidas wins a standoff with a ferocious wolf, using a tactic that will come in handy later on. The Persians invade Greece. Cut to the Battle of Thermopylae. Things happen just about that fast in this battle epic, which doesn't waste much time getting around to the stabbings, bludgeonings, impalings and beheadings its target audience has paid good money to see. It's a rousing celebration of the glory of war, aimed at people whose notions of war come primarily from comic books. And you know what? It totally works. The good guys are heroic, the villains are despicable, the action's exciting, and the Spartans look dashing and buff with their rippling abs and shaved chests and cocky grins and perfect teeth. The Persian king Xerxes has more piercings than a fetish queen, and any soldier who marched into combat in briefs and a cape (as the Spartans do) would be carved up in seconds, but this is history according to Frank Miller, not Herodotus. It's also a movie that demands to be seen on a big screen, the bigger the better. If you watch it only on video, you'll be missing something.