Monday 23 June 2008

300



Fighting fantasied up re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. 300 laconic Spartans and a chunk of allies hold a narrow rock slit against constant invading Persian re-spawn.

300 opens screaming and wailing with a clipped visual rundown of Spartan society and the fascist factory agoge training system, easily the best of Snyder's additions to Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's panoramic history thump. Other detours from Miller's utterly romanticised source are either less successful or dogshit-on-carpet unwelcome.

Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo is expanded from an Elektra shaped rock-at-home to Herodotus' noted canny political thinker, fending off sleaze lunges from Dominic West's corrupt Theron. It's a real stinker that her rallying speech drips with an attempted war on terror allegory utterly at odds with Historical understanding of Sparta, and even Miller's (sometimes less than accurate) take on the warrior tribe. A key excised line from the fifth issue of the Miller / Varley series notes the inherent irony of the Spartan few battling to preserve social equality: "I didn't ask (for your allegiance). Leave democracy to the Athenians, boy." The fanatical suicide programmed Spartans have more in common with the current Axis of Evil foot soldiers than any US citizen serving abroad.



Snyder's take on the Persian empire is particularly dodgy, facing the Spartan 300 is a mish-mash of trolls, inbred teeth filers, goat headed shaitan musicians, and techno-magik hand grenade wizards; as if the promise of an army drawn from countries spanning Asia, Africa and Europe was not quite interesting enough. The Achaemenid Empire is headed up by the ten foot tall Xerxes, who appears less like Miller's Maasai pierce God, and more like the bore voiced androgynous Ra child from Stargate. There's rarely a Persian glimpsed that isn't deformed, caricatured or monstrous in some way. It's akin to video game rogues gallery spice ups.



Still, 300 has the same dementedly macho appeal as John Millius' Conan The Barbarian; huge, psychotic men drifting machine-like through endless streams of foes. History and Miller's doggedly laconic dialogue survives medium transition completely intact. Much of the film rests of Gerard Butler's shoulders, convincing as the soldier king leading his men screaming and shouting to their doom. Battle scenes are almost nasty enough, excelling during the slow, deliberate phalanx pushes rather than the distractingly digital speed-manipulated one man army motions; the artificial haste shifts detract from what looks like solid, calculated choreography. The eventual dispatch of the 300 is far too brief and neat too - lacking Miller's constant, piercing, screaming avalanche of black and white arrow knives.

300's key appeal is that of a handful of men not only facing absurdly overwhelming odds and believing they can win, but also expecting to absolutely piss it and be home for tea.

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