Posted on 03/12/2014 11:15:50 PM PDT by lee martell
I don't usually go see gladiator movies, but I thought I'd give the new '300' a try. Within the first five minutes of the film, I realized I'd made a mistake, because of the very graphic violence, violence that is, actually appropriate to the storyline. I suppose I was just curious, because the first '300' got such rave reviews. I was so glad chose not to see the movie in 3d, especially when the warring sides began their sword to sword advance. The director had a visual gimmick of depicting the moment when one soldier slices or skewers the other; there would be a roundhouse swinging motion with sword drawn, followed by a spray of blood shown in slow motion and suspended in air. I started to leave the theatre right then and there, but I thought wait, don't be so quick to cut and run. Let's see where it goes from here. Maybe the director is finished playing with his new FX toys.
I like seeing good fighting techniques, battles with evenly matched opponents. There was a lot of that. You can tell there was a lot of practice and drilling to coordinate timing, accuracy of placement and dispensing of strength. I like seeing the blocking the parrying the sneak up garroting of the enemy. The woman cast Eva Green is incredible as Artemisia, Queen if the Persians. I would not want her as an enemy. This is the kind of Xena-on-Steroids role the Angelina Jolie used to have. The leader of the Greek Army appeared to have just stepped out of Super Cuts Salon. The dialects and accents were all over the place. Maybe that was on purpose to say the armies were manned by citizens throughout the respective countries.
When they were not depicting on land battle, with all the mud and the blood, there was battle on the water. I found some of the Greek at sea tactics against the Persians were creative. The Greeks were vastly outnumbered, so they had to plan carefully. During their initial on water confrontation, the Greeks came forward with about 12 ships in circle formation. They approached the Persians, about 30 ships in V formation as with a flock of birds. Themistokles; the Greek leader instructs his men to aim for the weakest spot in the Persian formation, which would be the absolute center. This plan works very well, disorientating the Persians to the point of ramming into their own ships while in pursuit of the tiny Greek formation. That was good. This scene was soon followed by Artemisia beheading a prisoner, sweetly kissing his now loosed head, then cast the useless head over the side. At that point, I had seen enough for the day.
wonders to himself how many low information voters dont realize they are learning history watching these movies,,
Thanks for posting, just spent the last two hours watching it on my computer monitor. Great movie, one of thos little "sleepers" that no one ever heard about..........
I got hooked that way too.
Thought I’d just watch a few minutes and *POOF*! Two hours gone!
Hollywood changes history to suit it's whims and (according to them) make the story better. I have my doubts but in this case the person you were complaining about is an importent part of the story. Take it up with Herodotus.
There's a big difference between history, where she commanded the ship (a.k.a gave orders from the "sidelines")
Ships, five of them. And if you think commanding five triremes is giving orders from the sidelines then you confuse them with the ships of today.
The trireme was about 121 feet long and 20 feet wide on the outside. The deck was much smaller and that is where she would have had to be to give orders.
Did she take out "entire regiments of Greek Marines" with the sword? Probably not. There was after all only about 3000-4000 hoplites there.
But that is no reason to write out people who were there because they don't fit with your world view.
She was sort of Greek in that Halicarnassus used to be a Greek colony. Since they had been thrown out some time ago I doubt they thought of themselves as Greek anymore.
Go repent! Besides he only fights one or two at a time, the rest dance around like kids waiting their turn at the bathroom until he is ready to take them on.
but having a skinny 97 pound woman take on even ONE large, fit, male soldier and live to tell about it
Actually she can. What she can not do is any sort of prolonged battle or anything beyond a few thrusts and parries. Women lack upper body strength. However if she manages to get in a quick killing blow she could take him out. But it would be a one time thing.
Having said that, I was in no way expecting reality from this movie, so I wasn't disappointed.
Yeah, but certain things in movies tend to be more jarring then others for some people.
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