300 (Widescreen Edition)

Buy This Item 300 (Widescreen Edition) by Warner Home Video  Available from Amazon  $13.99  on 9-23-2008     The epic graphic novel by Frank Miller (Sin City) assaults the screen with the blood, thunder and awe of its ferocious visual style faithfully recreated in an intense blend of live-action and CGI animation. Retelling the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, it depicts the titanic clash in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his massive Persian army. Experience history at swordpoint. And moviemaking with a cutting edge. Reader Reviews I'll admit to being a glutton for war movies, especially those depicting an underdog just kicking the junk out of an arrogant and corrupt opponent that happens to wield technical and/or numerical superiority. It may simply be that lingering pocket of testosterone not yet fully softened by the comforts of modern urban life that causes chest to puff and blood to surge momentarily when witnessing the collision of two massive legions on a battlefield. Spears dive clean through the bodies of the wicked, blood rushes forth to return its life force to Gaia, and beneath the visual alarm of orgiastic slaughter, a subtle reminder of paths cut and histories altered via a few frenetic hours of massacre. Empires in this way are made and broken, legends etched into the pages of time, and societies born unto their fullest potential in the wake of barbarism. And indeed...that is exactly how the Greeks viewed the Persian invaders under the rulers Darius and Xerxes: barbarians. Of course, the same held true on the other side of that great conflict between those archetypal representatives of "East" and "West". The Persians viewed themselves as the light of the world, spreading civilization and the glory of their god Ahura Mazda to the darkened lands of the uncultured. To their eyes, the Greeks were the barbarians who had sacked their city of Sardis in Asia Minor...killing without remorse and then running back to their homeland. So they moved to squelch the upstart Greeks once and for all... As in many conflicts, distinctions between right and wrong in the Greco-Persian Wars depended heavily upon which side you supported. This leads me to my point, in reference to Frank (Sin City) Miller and Zack (Dawn of the Dead) Synder's blood-drenched film, 300. I've seen the movie a few times now and have heard reviews both positive and negative, with the negative tending to come across a bit snooty. It's as if people are missing the punchline with regard to action movies made in the past...oh, 20 years or so. Let's put it this way: if you've read your Herodotus and Aeschylus and you're going in to this movie expecting it to be a historical tour de force, forget it. Movies like this aren't about belaboring the details of history...they're about the "story" part of that word. If you can take some nuggets of fact and whip it together with a healthy dose of sensationalism, you can create a wild farce worthy of burning a couple of hours with. That's it, really...300 is all about the ride and it delivers nicely.

300 (Widescreen Edition) Available from Amazon Price: $13.99 Updated on 9-23-2008.

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