300

300 oozes with testosterone, throwing ripped muscles, gory decapitations, writhing women, and machismo speeches on screen with unrelenting frequency. Unfortunately, 300 offers little else, especially in the oh-so-important detail of providing interesting characters (everyone blends together into one big bearded army-aton), so after the first half hour it starts to feel like an exercise in excess, rather than a rollicking journey into depravity.

The story is quite simple, 300 Spartan warriors under the leadership of King Leonidas try to take on a vast number of Persian soldiers. Fighting ensues.

Visually, 300 is stunning (easily one of the most darkly beautiful movies I’ve seen in a while), but the images can’t do anything to save an emotionally one note script. The Spartans live solely to fight honourably. Nothing they do throughout the entire course of the movie disputes that fact, and the characters rarely drop their warrior facades. The filmmakers love the textures, and the colours of this world, but they don’t love the people.

The battle scenes have moments of inspiration (watching the soldiers use real Spartan fighting techniques is cool), but ultimately they blend together into an emotionless block of time where horrible things happen to characters I couldn’t care less about.

An interesting subplot finally develops between Xerxes, the Persian Empire’s God complexing leader, and Leonidas, about what one would be willing to sacrifice in order to achieve amazing power. It brings up questions that I felt should have been explored, but weren’t, questions that at the very least would have provided Leonidas with an emotion other than anger. Why is Leonidas so intent on fighting the Persians without a full army, knowing full well that he is heading into a suicide mission? Why is Leonidas so loyal to his men when he hardly seems to know any of them? The movie chooses not to explore Leonidas’ obsessions or motivations at all, instead allowing every personality disorder to be explained with the line, “WE ARE SPARTANS!!!” Yes, yes, you are…….

Well… “I AM BORED!!!”

300, while breathtakingly rich in its imagery, feels as artificial as the computer generated backdrops.

Star Rating ** out of 4