I never saw the trailer. My friend I saw it with just told me it was about the Battle of Thermopolae and how the Greeks routed the Persians.
If you never saw the trailer I can understand how it would be nothing like what you expected. But viewing the trailer leaves no doubt that this is a movie version of a graphic novel, aka Sin City but with its own style and verve.
OK, so I croaked and watched a pirated version. Must have been a rough cut with good quality, I'm rather sure the final movie is more polished. Or polished. Anyway, not bad. Pretty much everything I expected. Blood and gore galore, speeches and some nicely trained men-material I'm hesitant to give a final verdict on the visual quality because I'm not sure that what I saw was the final version. All the CGI sets make the movie look smallish somehow. Can't put my finger on it, it's like you can somehow see the confinements of the blue screen set no matter what's on the screen. Other than that: nicely and stylishly done, looking forward to seeing it on a big screen One question remains tho. Where the hell did all those hectoliters of digital blood go? The ground is always clean
There was nothing under the spoiler! EDIT- got it the second time. And yes, that woman is H.A.W.T. Apparently she's into female boxing and shit, too! I wonder if that's why they picked her- you can see in the movie her build is as athletic for a woman as most of they guys' are for guys. She's got that perfect balance of fitness and feminine beauty that every woman should aspire to. Those spartan outfits (double-entendre/pun intended!) outfits didn't hurt, either! Oh, and I didn't know that Gerard Butler was Scottish. SCOTLAND RULZ!! :bigstall:
That's it? I smashed in the ticket window with my fist and screamed "THIS . . . IS . . . CINEMARK!". Then I went to take a piss and noticed my balls had gained about a pound of mass. I'm expecting to see a spike in births in about 9 months.
Very cool, but you know what? I could actually see the Iranians gripe about the propaganda aspect of it. It did dehumanize the Persians, and was all about a bunch of white democrats (in the movie, anyway) kicking the holy living shit out of them. I think perhaps the fact that I know Frank Miller absolutely loathes Islamic theocracy colored my perception of the film. If ever there was a libertarian's wet dream, it was this film. Absolutely loved it.
Yet strangely, the parallels between western society and the barbarism that is Iran now play very well.... The words coming out of the lips of the Spartans aren't those of Spartans, but of modern democratic thought. The Persians aren't historically accurate, they are dehumanized barbarians, not the culture that freed all of their slaves in ancient times. The story is a better allegory of the current clash of civilizations (as Miller sees it) than the one that took place during the time of Xerxes and Leonidas. Hell of a good flick, and I can't say I disagree with Miller's POV, but the message there is definitely more than just the history of Thermopylae or an action adventure slugfest.
All movies do this 'dehumanizing of the bad guys'. In the 13th Warrior, the Vikings are the heroes. In Pathfinder, they'll be shadowy, gutteral monsters. In King Arthur, the Britons/Romans are the heroes. The Saxons are mindless savages. In Ivanhoe, the Saxons are the downtrodden heroes, and the Normans are their savage, raping overlords. In Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, the English are the heroes while the Celts (read- Scots) are blue-painted cavemen who do nothing but rape, pillage, and drink the blood of their dead. In Braveheart, the Scots are the blue-faced heroes while the English are the savage rapers and pillagers. See the pattern, here? It simply depends on the movie, the time period, and from which side of the conflict we draw the heroes and the villains.
Speaking of which, when I was looking at some stuff for 300 on IMDB, I found a reference to another film starring Gerard Butler, called "Beowulf and Grendel." It's another take on the Beowulf story, with Butler as Beowulf and Stellan Skaarsgard as Hrothgar. It supposedly takes place in Denmark but I'd bet 20,000 kroner it was filmed in Iceland. (Judging by the scenery and some of the credits) Anyway, I netflixed it and it was actually a pretty good movie, especially if you like the Northmen and the vikings and such. This wasn't really a viking movie per se, but they were definitely sword Danes. Good stuff with a few bits of good combat footage, and relatively faithful to the classic, but with a couple cinematic twists which were fun. Marso sez- give it a whirl if that's your bag.
Curious, and have in these movies the writer of the script go on long political rants about the current political systems of the group he then choses to make the bad guys and dehumanize? Personally, I think he's right, but there's no doubt Frank Miller is pretty pissed off at Iran. When a guy who has been quoted as saying we are currently in a clash of civilizations with the forces of darkness then gets a movie made about a script he wrote where he changes the nature of the historical enmity and reality about that group, I think it's fairly safe to say he's making a political statement. Hell of a good flick though.
Oh I wasn't trying to argue that Miller wasn't making any political statements, although to be honest nothing really jumped out at me here. Only the usual 'good guys are heroic, bad guys are teh eeeeeeeevil' stuff. I can keep my politics and entertainment separated out, and actually prefer it that way unless the movie is directly about current events, like Blackhawk Down. I mean the movie (300) was fantasy enough that it's hard to prescribe any of the stuff to real life.
I didn't even really associate them with the Iranians, as most connections between them now are purely geographical. Like the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans...they're all so different now than in those historical perspectives, it's worthless to even think of them as the same people. I thought there was more weight to the "All the white greeks are beating up on the evil black persians!" argument (Which in and of itself was also fairly stupid). To quote the Shat, "Get a life, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's...JUST a movie!"
