300: The UK Edition

If you are reading this and you are hailing from the US you probably saw this three years ago and are thinking “What is this English cracker doing wasting my time when I should be cooking ma grits?” or whatever. But hey, it only just come out at the weekend here, so give me a break. K? K.

This movie has some kinda historical basis so I’ll try and put you in the picture: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back about six hundred years before Jesus got his first set of Frankincense Lego bricks, there was all kinds of mayhem cracking off in Europe. This huge king by the name of Xerxes (I think he was named after a photocopier) and his huge, million strong, army of Persians (and assorted freaks) was marching all over Europe beating seven shades of cheese out of all and sundry.

BUMMER!! Obviously, at this point England should have stepped in and stomped them into the sand, BUT NO!!! The Brits were still scrabbling around, eating mud and praying to trees. What about the good old US of A? Sorry folks, your country was still undiscovered and inhabited by a bunch of tent dwelling dudes who liked a good pipe in the evening.

WHAT TO DO??? Who would give battle to old Xerxes and his hordes? Well, panic not my friends there was one tribe in Greece that were up for the job, t’was the Spartans, my amigos.

THAT’S RIGHT! THE SPARTANS!! These were folk born, bred and beaten into fighting. From an early age these sweaty, great, goons were handed a spear and told “Get out there into the wilderness and get thee a wolf!” Trust me, they are what those rapper fellows call “bad ass”.

The Spartan king, King Leonidas (not named after a photocopier) gets 300 of his best mates and legs it out to face the Persians with only a cloak, a loin cloth and pointy stick each to help them. That little historical background forms about the first thirty minutes of the film. The next eighty are just one fat fight scene after another and another and another.

SOUNDS INCREDIBLY DULL!! No. I loved it. If you liked Lord of the Rings for the scraps and sighed impatiently every time you saw a crack addled midget clinging to a mountain, this is for you my friend. There is lots of slaughter, smiting, slaying, savagery and more slaughter. AND IT LOOKS GOOD!!Like LOTR and Sin City, this film knows how to use the CGI technology like an old friend who owes you a favour and you get him to retile the roof, clean the drains and let you sleep with his wife. It is used to pick up the flares of red that dance (a dance that involves evisceration and limb loss) around the hypnotic battle scenes. However, when it is used BIG, it is employed to great huge tableaus of charging hordes, crashing storms and walls of dead, that are actually staggeringly beautiful in a Goya/end of the world/AAAAGH kinda way.YUMMY!! Yes indeed, battles, like all since Chow Yung Fat balanced on a tree in the East. Slow motion bleeds into frenetic speed, weapon blows and projectiles are followed to their grisly destination.

300 is not a chick-flick, per say. But, it probably could have done with Sandra Bullock/Reese Witherspoon/Meg Ryan getting decapitated! HOOZAH! I went with a lady amigo and she loved 300 to bits. She spent the following hour muttering “Awesome!” and “Wow!” It is undemanding, but exhilarating fun. If you like things to trot along at a pace and not get bogged down with lots of needless extraneous plot BUT still would like to care something about the characters I guarantee this will be a cut, slice and a hack above the rest of the bobbins that’ll be released this summer. That includes the inevitably laborious Pirates of the Caribbean III, AND it won’t have Orlando Bloom in it. -The Tamworthian

Here’s another UK view of 300 from Trisha

300 is based on a graphic novel based on the battle of Thermopylae (480BC) in which 300 Spartans defend a pass with their lives. It is full of some fantastic visual stills, great special effects and hunky oiled man – bodies. If you’ve ever wanted to watch a slo-mo beheading then this is the movie for you. Gerard Butler is a solid Leonidas, Lena Headley makes for a strong female lead and it is a pleasure to see David Wenham (Lord of the Rings) on the big screen again . If Gladiator wasn’t brutal enough for you and Troy was rather pants, then this graphic sandals/sword romp (rampage) is for you.