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Seeming as Block G Raptor is so eager to get discussion going on movies, anyone been to see this film? It's been very hyped up. It was cheap enough to make and grossed very well in the US. I haven't seen Sin City but this is a very odd take on the Battle of Thermoplyae. The battle scenes were good but the acting wasn't particularly amazing. I can't help but feel this film will just stoke anti-Iranian/Middle East flames.
Think I'll suss out 1 to 299 first.
It's a good film, not a great film ...
I'm the same, have to watch them in order.Quote:
Originally Posted by Risteard
You went to a Frank Miller-derived film expecting acting?Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
Don't worry, I'm guessing here, but I reckon the percentage of Americans who know that Persia is Iran is pretty low.Quote:
I can't help but feel this film will just stoke anti-Iranian/Middle East flames.
Good point.Quote:
Originally Posted by John83
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8SuCBHqXtQ
I liked it i also liked sin city , i like when someone tries something new rather than just using the same old CGI stuff like peter jackson did in LOTR's . or using the old slow motion spinning camera matrix trick .
Made me want to go a get a shield , helmet and cape
really enjoyed the film, but was dismayed when i read a review denouncing the parallels in the film to the current problems in the middle east. it was only then that it clicked with me, god damn cynical critics have to look deep into what a film means. it's just recounting a bloody story (pun kind of intended) for feck sake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
i liked the alternative style it was shot in. and i thought the acting was good too, in a didnt-take-themselves-too-seiously kind of way. i'd put it considerably ahead of alexander, kingdom of heaven, troy (not that that says much i guess!)
Taken in context:
Spartans are the 1st professional bad ass army.
Spartans generally **** up anyone they fight.
Frank Miller writes violent comics.
Frank Miller produces his comics to movies.
Sin City was good.
300 is about 300 Spartans ****ing up the persian army mostly done in CGI. So about hour and 40 minutes of just plain violence, how it can be anything other than brilliant :D Only bad point is that god damn Emo music playing during the fihts.
kdjac
How could this movie be bad? I read a review in the Metro or Herald AM that said having because the bad guys had dark skin this film was racist. The reviewer obviously doesn't know where Persia is and confused Sparta with the band of the same name. And is an idiot. If it's even one tenth of the movie Sin City was then it'll be great
I saw it today. I quite enjoyed it, though it has Miller's trademark delight in detailed gore and nudity - not for everyone's taste.
The portrayal of the Persians is a bit bizarre to say the least. I'd almost say cartoonish but then it is based on a comic! The 7 foot beardless effete/feminine/androgynous (dunno how to describe him!) Xerxes is baffling. The Persians are decadent, wildly oriental and mystical. Their depiction resembles ancient Greek racist ideas of the Persians. Iran was quite offended by the film and made complaints, but then again what doesn't offend the Iranian hierarchy?Quote:
Originally Posted by LeixlipRed
There was a giant with pincers like a crab; the emperor seemed to be about 8ft tall and that wolf seemed to be the size of a small horse - I can't believe anyone can take it that seriously. I'm also bemused by those critics trying to claim it's an allegory for current US foreign policy - as if the story was entirely fictional. Frankly, I don't know what to make of people's reactions! Xerxes' depiction reminded me of some depictions of the Egyptian Pharaohs (with more jewelery :)).Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
Well I've seen scholarly analysis of many films related to the classical world and whether its for wanting to find something or genuine reality they tend to have served as an allegory of some form of modern politics or international relations. It's usually where they veer from reality (or known reality) that there seems to be a point being made. In the case of this film, it's so out there I don't really know. Don't get me wong I enjoyed the film and the character of Xerxes but the fact it is loosely based on a real event in a roundabout way leaves it open to criticism.Quote:
Originally Posted by John83
By the way, you forgot to mention the giant triceraptops thingys. Now, how did they kill those?:eek:
A giant meteorite hitting the Yucatan peninsula, duh. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
:confused: there was a rhino and elephants, kitted out with armour and flags as the indians used to have them. the film is told from a spartan's eye view so depicting them as bizarre monsters twenty foot tall is probably truthful enough to how they seemed!Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
i enjoyed it as a mindless visual treat, i probably would have enjoyed it more if i didnt think the actual true historical story of that longer running greek-persian war would make so much of a better movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-P...es.27_invasion
Don't think the lady who reviewed the movie for the Metro/Herald AM read that deeply into it. Then again maybe she did :D I haven't seen it though so perhaps I'm being unfairQuote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
[QUOTE=GavinZac;657744]:confused: there was a rhino and elephants, kitted out with armour and flags as the indians used to have them.[/i]
That might be my dinosaur then.:P
Fair enough, but where did the Spartans' other king go?Quote:
the film is told from a spartan's eye view so depicting them as bizarre monsters twenty foot tall is probably truthful enough to how they seemed!
I think it's a bit too long and complicated to make any sort of a watchable movie. Alexander's long and meandering campaigns didn't make for a great movie.Quote:
i enjoyed it as a mindless visual treat, i probably would have enjoyed it more if i didnt think the actual true historical story of that longer running greek-persian war would make so much of a better movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-P...es.27_invasion
Miller was heavily inspired as a youth by the film 'The 300 Spartans' which is based on Thermopylae. This led him to write 300 at a later date as a story inspired by the concept, rather than an historical account.
Haven't seen the the film, but really enjoyed the following review:
Briefs encounter
With its war rhinos, marauding elephants and ninja-stye warriors, 300 is an interesting stab at history. But it's the underpants that steal the show, says Joe Queenan
Joe Queenan
Saturday March 17, 2007
Guardian
One of the sassiest putdown lines in history, and arguably the first great wisecrack ever written down for posterity, was voiced at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. Ridiculing the piddling force of 300 Spartan warriors who had ventured forth to do battle with the Persian army - the largest fighting force heretofore assembled, said by some to consist of a million men - an emissary of Xerxes, the mighty Persian king, sneered, "We will shoot so many arrows into the air, we will blot out the sun." To which one of the snarkiest Spartan chieftains in that city-state's long and snark-laden history, replied, "Good. We'll fight in the shade."
Laconic comebacks like this are few and far between in 300, where both the Spartans (who shall come back with their shields or on them) and the Persians (the usual motherless dogs who turn up in these films) tend to run their mouths ceaselessly. A cartoonish re-imagining of the epic confrontation between the indomitable, freedom-loving Spartans and the sybaritic, ostentatious Persians, the high-energy but low-rent 300 is filled from top to bottom with gasbags of all descriptions: pontificating generals, preening kings, enigmatic holy men, garrulous wives and duplicitous, hunchbacked dwarves. The Spartans of yore are renowned for letting their swords and spears do the talking, but in this film everybody wants a chance to climb up on his soapbox and say something sententious or ominous or just plain weird. "We will mouth so many banalities it will put you all to sleep," a Persian ambassador might have warned the Spartans. To which the obvious comeback would be: "Good. We'll fight you in our dreams."
300 is one of those oddly seductive but completely ridiculous films that will please most fans of this genre precisely because fans of this genre don't object to films that are completely ridiculous. Filmed in the digitally enhanced comic-book style that made Sin City so visually arresting, 300 looks like a videogame devised by some very camp programmers. With a full complement of marauding elephants, deformed dwarves, ninja-style warriors, and human guillotines sporting razor-sharp lobster claws that hang from where their arms should be, 300 is loaded with terrific optical surprises. The war rhino, for example, is an unexpected treat; it has been far too long since these fearsome horned beasts have made an appearance in a film, and I for one am happy to see them back on the payroll. Though there was a part of me that was really looking forward to ironclad war corgis or flying battle squirrels.
Yet perhaps the boldest visual touch of all is having the 300 Spartans fight the entire battle clad only in black underpants and crimson cloaks. Though the Persians themselves are no slouches in the fashion department - Xerxes arrives in Greece in Full Bling Overdrive - the Spartans are so impressive in their World Wrestling Federation bikinis, showing off their steroid-enhanced trapezoids, six-pack abs, and freedom-loving glutes that the invaders are understandably unnerved. "We will attack Greece late in the autumn before you have time to get your winter clothes out of moth balls," a Persian emissary might cautiously tease his adversaries. To which a brassy Spartan might fire back: "Good. We'll fight in our underpants."
Based on a graphic novel co-written by the genre's most revered arrested adolescent Frank Miller (The Dark Knight, Sin City and Elektra) 300 was directed by Zack Snyder, who previously oversaw a fairly solid remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Not so much a director as a re-director, Snyder is the kind of industrious sampler who never saw a shot he wouldn't pilfer, an idea he wouldn't steal: the soundtrack is straight out of Gladiator, Xerxes' bodyguards sport scary masks filched from Scream III, a cocky young Spartan's surprise decapitation is purloined from Black Rain where Andy Garcia, not for the first time, loses his head; and the final scene is a direct lift from Braveheart, as are the leprous men in cowls who have somehow convinced the Spartan republic to supply them with a fresh weekly supply of beautiful virgins to keep them amused during the long winter nights when the gods fall silent. Only Spartans in bikinis is Snyder's own idea, and I am not sure it is a good one: these outfits look a whole lot better on women. On further reflection, even the black-underpants visual may have been swiped from Pierce Brosnan's memorable turn as an unconventionally clad hitman in Matador. Nothing is more frightening to a depraved but sensibly attired invader than a psychopath who is not afraid to show some leg.
About the acting in 300: the supporting cast is awful and the headliners are worse. As King Leonidas, the middle-aged commander of the vaunted heroes whose delaying tactics saved all Greece from tyranny (at least until the Romans showed up), Gerald Butler brings a scowl he seems to have annexed from Laurence Fishburne, and not much else. Rodrigo Santoro, as Xerxes, is merely silly: he looks less like the king of kings, shah of shahs, and emperor of emperors than the mixologist of mixologists or the body artist of body artists. Lena Headey, playing Leonidas's wife - a feisty looker saddled with the unfortunate name of Queen Gorgo - is a dead ringer for Connie Nielsen in Gladiator. Unexpectedly, she allows herself to be raped by a treacherous politician in order to advance her own political agenda, but quickly realises that this is both a personal and professional mistake, and fishguts her assailant in full view of the Council of Elders who preside over Spartan political life. The Elders are impressed - and who wouldn't be? - and immediately do her bidding. All this - the rape, the fish-gutting, the discomfit of the Elders - is carried out in the bravura style one has come to expect from the unterpantzen ubermenschen genre over the years.
A theory briefly making the rounds in the United States just before 300 was released posited a parallel between the war between the Persians and the Greeks and the ongoing confrontation between the United States and the Iraqi insurgents. This theory makes no sense: the Persians are the ancestors of the Iranians, who hate the Iraqis; the Spartans were professional soldiers, not terrorists; and Xerxes, as depicted in 300, is so hip, so downtown, so kewl that any number of downtrodden people would be proud to serve as his boot-licking vassals, whereas George Bush inspires no such self-abasement, because he looks like a suit. Moreover, the 300 Spartans were fighting for freedom only in the narrow technical sense that they hated the idea of being enslaved by the Persians; as enthusiastic proto-fascists whose bloodline reaches right down to the Nazis, they certainly didn't mind having slaves of their own. Unlike the Athenians, who gave the world democracy, logic, drama, oratory, architecture, sophisticated sculpture and reliable history, the Spartans basically gave everyone a headache. Gee, maybe this Iraqi/Spartan parallel isn't so far-fetched after all. My only question is: if Leonidas is a thinly veiled standin for Osama bin Laden and the very smooth, very stylish Xerxes is a cunning rendering of George Bush, precisely who in this movie is playing Tony Blair? As a Persian emissary might caution the 300 Spartans, "The rivers will run red with so much blood that no one will come outdoors again for years." To which one of the 300 Spartans might reply: "Good. In that case, we can put off calling a general election."