Film Reviews

300

• Rating:
• Director: Zack Snyder.
• Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro.
• Details: US / 117mins (15A).

"Before this battle is over, the world will know that few stood against many." In 480 BC, 300 Spartans refused to bow to the thousand nations of Persian Empire, under the command of Xerxes (Santoro). Led by the ferocious King Leonidas (Butler), the 300 'no retreat, no surrender' Spartans - all picked because they had at least one son to carry on their name - defied the mystics and fought The Battle Of Thermopylae. How director Zack Snyder made a movie so gory, so violent, yet so beautiful to look at is beyond me (although I'll hazard a guess at the green screen technique explored in Sin City). This is the movie's selling point, as characterisation is minimal and the performers are reduced to shouting their lines, even though they may be whippet-smart laconic quips the Spartans were famous for. It does tend to get a bit Lord-Of-The-Ringsy (now a recognised term) with the various deformed characters, armoured elephants and angry rhinos - but that's neither here nor there. This is a movie event that finally delivers - a jaw-dropping, magnificent spectacle that will reinvent the old swords-and-sandals epic that suffered at the hands of the messy Troy, the boring Kingdom Of Heaven and the wholly underwhelming Alexander. 300 is a victory of style over substance - actually it's more than a victory, it's a rout.

Review by Gavin Burke