300 tears into your senses with spears of vivid colour before staving in your pate with 2500 years of history condensed into two thunderous hours of sound and fury.
If you are unfamiliar with the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, 300 offers a crash course: King Leonidas leads his bodyguard of 300 Spartans to certain death in an attempt to intercept the million-strong army of the Persian God-King, Xerxes. The rest, as they say, is history, and indeed many of the film’s best lines are lifted intact from Herodotus.
Bearded and bare chested, Gerard Butler emerges as a leading man in the classic mould; his performance effortlessly channels the weather-fronts of Sean Connery, Kirk Douglas and Brian Blessed into a swirling vortex of masculine brio.
Using similar techniques to Sin City (2002), the film’s cinematography conjures the layout of Frank Miller’s original graphic novel; every frame looks as if it was painted on parchment, every sunset as if it was washed in watercolour.
300 not only proves that that digital filmmaking can be used equal and exceed the versatility and texture of conventional film; it triumphantly reinvents the thousands of years old sword-and-sandal genre for another millennium.
A visually stunning account of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC in which King Leonidas and 300 Spartan soldiers fought the million-strong armies of Xerxes' Persian Empire. With action and images torn from the pages of Frank Miller's graphic novel, 300 - like Sin City before it - helps redefine what is possible through modern digital effects.
