Posted on 03/12/2007 11:12:42 AM PDT by Dr._Joseph_Warren
Like watching a blood-drunk barbarian on a rampage, 300, like its title, drops the pretense of history—it purports to dramatize the ancient battle of Thermopylae between Spartans and Persians—and offers what can only be described as a mongrel mix of audio-visual fury. 300 is History hijacked by Horror.
A band of Spartan men go to war led by a king (Gerard Butler) married to a queen (Lena Headey) who insulted the enemy that marches upon their civilization, which is depicted as a haven for hateful half-savages. It's easier to follow who's who and what's what than one might expect, yet everything is hyper-exaggerated. 300 is submerged in style over substance.
The king kills the insolent enemy messenger, consults deformed mystics and their undulating nymph slave, mounts his wife every which way and sets out with his grunting group of soldiers to take a stand against the oncoming Persian zombies. It takes almost an hour before the bloodletting begins. The script is filled with words—tyranny, freedom, reason—that go completely unsupported and have no meaning. The Spartans, portrayed as snarling animals seeking hostility for its own sake, claim superiority over mysticism, but cartoonish mystics inflict real damage, thereby negating the power of reason over faith.
But with a military philosophy—the Spartan king regrets that he has so few lives to sacrifice—resembling the Bush administration's foreign policy, the mighty Spartans lack the mind to match the muscle.
If sacrifice is noble, why bother to fight—why not hurry up and die? And why—oh, never mind, this latest message of Doomsday nihilism, which sidesteps history, serves one purpose: to validate chronic fear.
(Excerpt) Read more at boxofficemojo.com ...
Only a liberal could say that words like tyranny, freedom, reason need to be supported or they have no meaning.
Only a liberal could misconstrue what is meant by the word 'sacrifice'.
"Why bother to fight?" Indeed!!!
The Iranians hate 300.
The Greeks hate 300.
The liberals hate 300.
That makes it a must see.
The liberal default position is not fighting in any case, so what's this bozo's point?
Drama fags hate George Bush. Just ask Frank Rich.
I saw it and liked it. Apparently so did a lot of people 'cause they grossed 70 Mil this week end. This guy knows nothing.
The Greeks hate it? Where'd you hear this?
Box office mojo? More like box office mumbo jumbo.
"Slammed" alert. Apparently there is no other word other than "slam" that can be substituted for "criticizes". What's next, "Yo, yo, dem lib haters done slammed on that 300 movie, yo!" as a headline?
This reporter suffers from what is called "Liberal Hate Fixation"...
...everything is seen through and clouded by this emotional disorder.
From the movies you watch, to the salad you eat, down to the color of socks you wear and how you put'em on.
All of life becomes subordinate to this hyper-hatred.
Most of my liberal friends hated the Lord of the Ring trilogy. I'd expect them to hate this movie too.
Email address of Scott Holleran, the idiot reviewer:
scott@boxofficemojo.com
o/` I'm-a get get get get you drunk, get you blood-drunk off my stump o/`
The army that the 300 stood up against, was that of Xerxes, King of Persia (which is present-day Iran). The size of that Persian Army was variously guessed as being between 50,000 and a million. While I doubt the latter figure, the biggest problem would be logistics for that army, simply keeping them fed. How does even one of the mightiest powers of 480 BC, manage to move that many soldiers and all their supply lines, over a distance of well over a thousand miles, from Persia to the Greek archipeligo? Now if Xerxes was staging from Asia Minor, a much larger army could be moved in a relatively short time, but still well short of the million or so that was being referred to.
The 300 Spartans under Leonidias that kept the entire Persian army bottled up has to stand as one of the most effective delaying tactics of all time.
I think someone sent out a memo to all the liberal movie reviewers in the US, because they ALL have the same talking points. Or maybe they just all read the NY Times review and are falling over themselves to copycat it. Though the NY Times piece didn't mention President Bush, it was very condescending about the attitude among the Spartans that "freedom isn't free".
I think Hollaran is a Libertarian, since I have seen him rip socialism in movies before.
I saw the movie this weekend, it is excellent.
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