300

300 (2006)

60% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 226 reviews)

Runtime: 116 minutes

Directed by: Zach Snyder

Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headley, David Wenham, Dominic West, Michael Fassbender

From: Warner Brothers/Legendary Pictures

Yeah, there is a reason why I watched this last night. It'll be revealed when I return tomorrow afternoon. Now, I'll talk about this film, and how I only saw it one time before, shortly after it came out on disc. I know I watched it but I really don't remember it and it didn't leave much of an impression overall, so I was interested in seeing how I felt about it in 2014.

Here's the plot description, from the IMDb: “King Leonidas and a force of 300 men fight the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.” But I am sure we all knew this already, along with how the movie is quite loosely based on fact, as I imagine the Persians didn't have special warriors who wore weird metal-looking masks, or had giant mutant things running around, or had elephants show up out of nowhere.

I really didn't remember the film, it turns out. The rest is from my Letterboxd review.

I had only seen this movie once before, back soon after it came out on disc. As I have it on Blu-ray in a 3 pack I got for real cheap, I figured it was about time I saw this again. Plus, soon I'll see the sequel, which got stronger reviews than I expected.

The movie is definitely historically inaccurate, never really makes a lot of sense, has goofy dialogue all around, the super-stylized thing isn't really my thing, and the bro douche-y meathead vibe is oh so strong with this.  There sometimes being narration that usually isn't needed is also a thing. What helps is that the world does look visually interesting, the slow-mo is actually done and used real well, and the action stuff can be fun to watch. The fact that the pace is pretty quick and it' never boring is an asset too... I also dug the closing credits and their style.

However, I think I'd prefer a serious historical documentary of what actually happened at the Battle of Thermopylae to the nonsense with this movie, where you have giant hulking mutated creatures, Persians that are effeminate, all the homoeroticism, and all the overall nonsense you see and hear.

Like I said I'll return tomorrow afternoon.