LogFAQs > #968885160

Wasn't in the mood to write tonight, so I watched something mindless. Then Firefox was like "FUCK YOU!" to me and froze, so... UGH.

300 (2007)
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Frank Miller, Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Michael Gordon
Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Heady, Dominic West, David Wenham
Previous status: Saw ages ago

"Madness?! This is SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Had to go with the iconic quote. Anyway, quick list of things, because I'm not writing all my thoughts in the same level of detail again:

• I hardly remember anything, and only ever saw this once because this board insisted back in the day. I just remembered it being mindless.
• The movie was clearly ridiculous from the getgo, and why it gets negative reviews is probably because ppl r dum and take things too seriously. I mean, there's this Pride Rock sequence above a pit of skulls, a shot of young Leonidas that looks like Gollum, a CGI wolf getting skewered, a bunch of shirtlessness, an overdramatic warrior culture made romantic through narration, full frontal nudity (I wrote "Cersei's boobies" on here - it's not like I haven't seen them before, and Lena Headey is an excellent actress as proven when she did drunk Cersei, but this was a nice surprise since I didn't think this was unrated)... the list goes on. Don't take something like this seriously. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
• The mindless violence was over-the-top, as were the CGI animals. EVERYTHING was over-the-top. There was that great rock music - kinda like an electronic Led Zeppelin - that they marched to. Really stood out. And was hilarious, much like how unserious this movie was.
• Xerxes was bribing a lot of people here to get his way, which should prove he's not a god right there. I didn't really like the portrayal of the Persians as one-dimensional baddies but it's not a big deal - I wasn't taking it seriously at all. The historical inaccuracies make it clear that this isn't a serious war movie, but the biggest one is the shirtless fighters. Like how much more ridiculous does it get than that?
• This movie is ripe for a drinking game. Every time someone says "Sparta" or "Spartan" take a drink. You'll get plastered in no time!

Here's the rest of what I had before btw since I screenshotted it; I was about to fix the "os" to "so"):
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/8/0/AAR0ZFAADzeg.png
Was also going to add about how awesome it was that Gorga skewered Theron for betraying her and projecting his own lies onto her, and the council believed her when Persian doubloons turned up on his corpse. It was AWESOME.

Really, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie for what it was. It's something I went in knowing was completely mindless but still was impressed by just how mindless it is. And how much I was laughing and reveling in how violent it got for no reason, when I don't usually like that stuff. It's a visual masterpiece even though there's plenty of green screen and CGI that was probably obvious back then too. All the animals were computer-generated and that made things look... unrealistic. But it doesn't matter. Realism was out the door here. The romantic narration over crazy meathead warriors wielding swords while shirtless is just hilarious to me. And I'm very much straight.

This is kind of hard to rate, honestly. It's by no means a grand achievement in storytelling, but it's a great achievement in visuals and ridiculousness, punctuated by some of the performances of the guys. The scenes back in Sparta seem like they're from a different movie, and the contrast actually works wonders. I'll give it a 4/5 - it's definitely something I'll return to if I'm ever feeling like watching something totally mindless and dumb like this, but really only in those circumstances. And for that, it's glorious.

@GavsEvans123 you get another nomination!