The basic story is the same, at least as history tells it to us:
in 480 B.C, the city/states of Greece are threatened by an invasion from the
East by the mighty Persian empire. King Xerxes, in his bid to control the entire
known world, launches an assault from the North with an army that numbers in the
tens of thousands. The Greek city/states of Athens and Sparta have rejected the
Persian overtures for surrender, with the Spartan King Leonidas (well-played
with great charisma here by Gerard Butler) giving his answer to Xerxes by personally killing the
Persian messengers who demanded his capitulation.
Yet when Leonidas tries to rally the Spartan army in a call to arms, he meets
with great resistance from within his own government.
Seeking the approval of the influential ephors, mystical holy men in charge of
the Spartan Oracle (a half-naked young woman who looks as if she's
dancing underwater),
Leonidas outlines his plan to block the Persian advance at a narrow mountain
pass to the North known as the Hot Gates…the battle ground that will be known as
Thermopylae to the rest of us. Yet upon consulting the Oracle, the ephors forbid
Leonidas to lead the army into battle during the upcoming religious holiday.
What Leonidas does not know is that they have been bribed to tell Leonidas to
back down by Theron (Dominic West) a powerful member of the Spartan council--who,
in turn, has been bribed by Xerxes to quell his fellow Spartans. And so Leonidas gathers 300 of his finest men and takes them on a walk. It’s not a military
advance, just a little stroll…up North, to the Hot Gates.
The council is
powerless to stop him, but with just 300 men, it appears Leonidas may not be
able to stop the Persians, either. But the Spartan King has another idea, a
tactical one that involves using the Hot Gates themselves against the Persians.
300 is an absorbingly good movie that’s based on the highly stylized graphic
novel by Frank Miller. While 1962’s The 300
Spartans may be more historically accurate in how it depicted the proper
uniforms of the Spartans, ironically, 300 actually manages to capture the
essence of who the Spartans really were--and these guys were truly fearsome warriors
on the battlefield, making them the Klingons of the Ancient World. And director
Zack Snyder does a marvelous job in capturing the brutal savagery of hand to hand
combat, Spartan style.
Filming his actors against CGI backgrounds, Snyder directs the story with
such an intense dynamic that it makes it hard to take your eyes
off the screen. The battlefield gore has earned the film an R rating (which was
something that Snyder reportedly fought the studio for; he wanted the R rating), yet the battle scenes
in 300 are so enthralling one can't see how else they could have been shot, rather
than in the raw, gritty style used here. Intercut with with the battle at
Thermopylae is the story of Queen Gorgo’s (Lena Headey) own
battle against the back-room politics of the Spartan capital that’s being
manipulated against her by Theron. It’s to Snyder’s (and the actors’) credit
that both sets of stories are equally interesting, and Headey manages to infuse
Gorgo with such an uncompromising strong will that you readily believe she’s the
capable wife of the mighty King Leonidas.
The Two Disc Special Edition comes with a second disc with
some half-hearted special feature documentaries that’s really not worth the
extra price (I can’t help but wonder if there may be another "Special Edition"
of this film coming down the pike). If you don’t care for special features, then
just buy the single disc widescreen DVD, because this is one movie that is worth
watching over and over again. Despite some flashes of stylized fantasy here and
there (some members of Xerxes' entourage look like goblins right out of the Lord
Of The Rings), 300 is the definitive telling of this timeless tale.
--SF
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