300

A fighting fantasied up re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. 300 Spartan hoplites (and hundreds more, apparently lesser Greek allies) hold a narrow rock passage against the invading forces of the  Persian empire. 300 opens, screaming and wailing, with a clipped rundown of Spartan society and their terrifying, fascistic agoge training system. This sequence is easily the best of director Zack Snyder's additions to Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's panoramic, fully-painted history book. Other detours from Miller's utterly romanticised source range from simply less successful to so unwelcome as to be alarming.

Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo is expanded too, transformed from Miller's Elektra shaped rock-at-home to the canny political thinker that Herodotus wrote about in his Histories. While supporting her king's ambitions from home, the Queen fends off all manner of lunges from Dominic West's sleazy Theron. It's a real stinker then that Gorgo's rallying speech is an attempt at a war on terror allegory, one utterly at odds with the historical understanding of Sparta, and even Miller's (sometimes less than accurate) take on the warrior tribe. A key (excised here) line from the fifth issue of the Miller / Varley series notes the inherent irony of the Spartan few battling to preserve a social equality that they themselves do not practice: "I didn't ask (for your allegiance). Leave democracy to the Athenians, boy." The fanatical, suicidal programming of the Spartans has more in common with the asymmetrical warfare practised by the occupied than any US citizen currently serving abroad.

Snyder's take on the Persian empire is absurd and fantastical too. Facing the Spartans is a mish-mash of trolls, inbred teeth filers, goat headed musicians, and techno-magik wizards. As if the promise of an army drawn from countries spanning Asia, Africa and Europe was not quite interesting enough for the filmmakers. The Achaemenid Empire is headed up by the ten foot tall Xerxes, who appears less like Miller's pierced, Maasai God, and more like the androgynous Ra from Stargate. There's rarely a Persian glimpsed that isn't deformed, caricatured or monstrous in some way. It's akin to a video game rogues gallery in terms of needless 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 incompetent foes. 

At least the doggedly laconic dialogue that Miller transcribed from documented history survives the transition between mediums completely intact. Adding a kind of absurd levity to the grimness. Otherwise, much of the film rests on Gerard Butler's shoulders, the actor always convincing as a soldier king leading his men, screaming and shouting, to their doom. Battle scenes are almost nasty enough too; excelling during the slow, deliberate phalanx pushes but stalling when cycling through the distracting, digital-looking motions of one men armies. The artificial haste introduced into these speed-manipulated sequences only detracts from what looks like solid, calculated choreography. The eventual dispatch of the 300 is far too brief and neat as well, lacking Miller's constant, piercing avalanche of black and white arrows. 300's key appeal then is that of a handful of men not only facing absurdly overwhelming odds and believing they can win, but these warriors also expecting to absolutely piss it and be back home for their tea.