No, your grandpa is not instructing you on some life lesson using antiquated 1950's catch phrases; rather, you're amidst the silly and over-the-top, poorly written "300," a film about a Spartan man's (Leonidas) military quest to defend his love for his own country against Persia under King Xerxes.
The first error of this film lies right at the beginning. We start with this ridiculous scene of Leonidas as a young boy and a wolf that he eventually kills. What does his boyhood have to do with the rest of the film, you may ask? Well, nothing, really. It's merely an allegory attesting to his incredible strength and cunning, in addition to showing what young Spartans must endure in growing up.
The film only spirals downhill from there. As many (too many) battle scenes are fought on screen, the director continually insists on using slow motion. For no damn reason! Not for dramatic effect, no. Just randomly thrown in at the most awkward moments. You literally burst into laughter at its excessive usage. This is not "The Matrix," so stop using it so damn much! Slow motion works best when used sparingly, unless it's used in one of the coolest sci-fi (syfy? HAHAHAAHHA just kidding) films ever made.
To add to the over-use of slow motion, the director insists on using a voice over technique throughout, but the audience has no idea what the hell is going on when the voice over starts. Who's talking? Is it someone's thoughts? Oh, I see so-and-so has a close up right now, maybe he's thinking to himself? Eventually (maybe towards the middle of the film), you discover that the anonymous voice refers to Leonidas as "our king," so it must be one of the soldiers there at the campaign and his own thoughts. Right? Well, OK, but which one? At the very end we see the mysterious voice was in fact just an injured soldier who was sent back to the Spartan kingdom to report the fallen Leonidas's valiant campaign. But HOW CAN THIS BE IF WHAT WE JUST SAW WAS ALL IN THE PRESENT WITH NO INDICATION THAT IT WAS HAPPENING IN THE PAST??? THE ACTION WAS UNFOLDING AS WE WATCHED IT. Now, this isn't to say that this can't be done. Obviously many directors use the voice over technique effectively. So if the director wanted to go this route, he had to at least start the film off with this soldier speaking, so we can understand that it's this particular man recounting the story. In fact, the contrast of him with a bandage as opposed to without will make the audience understand that he is in fact injured and time has passed. Forget the wolf and strange allegory, start out with this! Imagine that you're touring a house for sale. Instead of the people taking you around the entire house and leading you through the hallways so you can get a sufficient picture of the entire place you're considering on buying, they blindfold you and just take you into the closet of some random room. Not only are you disoriented and don't know what the hell's going on (and who are these creepy people anyway...), but you haven't seen the hallways and rooms that have led to this one particular room. Exactly! THIS TACTIC MAKES NO SENSE. It doesn't work in real life, nor does it work in story telling. Confusing the audience is the last thing you want to do.
The director fails to capture the audience on a real story. OK, Sparta is at war against Persia...okkkk, that's fine, but what does that mean for the people (and do the soldiers have to perpetually scream throughout the film?)? We have to see the Spartan people panicking (or, even better, discrediting Leonidas for his hostility and war-mongering spirit, not just from the select group of the crooked council). And what about Sparta's honor at stake? This needs to be amplified. All we see is battle after battle and we don't really get to know any of the characters. Just blood and gore all throughout the movie. When we see a supposedly tragic death of a man's son, we feel no empathy towards this man and the loss of his son. I mean, I didn't even remember either of their names! We don't know any character's aspirations or any backstory...nothing! In order to efficiently establish solid characters, the audience needs to know what in the whole wide world they want so they can be believable. Not to mention the other story of Leonidas's wife should have been capitalized upon: when she gets raped by that nasty asshole councilman, we simply don't care. We don't know this woman, so why should we? All we know is that she is a snarky queen. She doesn't even put up a fight against her rape! She just quickly de-robes right in front of him. It's almost like that bitch wanted it. I literally burst out into laughter. This is how the scene went (I'm not even kidding, check out the DVD)...
"...you know what I want," says the councilman
[dumb bitch takes off her dress and gets raped in the ass]
The movie just sickeningly parades around silliness the entire time. When we first meet King Xerxes, he straight up looks like a tranny. Did they really have to put him all in gold glitter, perfectly plucked eyebrows, full shimmery eye makeup, and earrings? The only thing that they got right was his stature, but the rest is an epic failure. And the Persian army uses dark magic? And are immortal (but not really because they keep getting killed)? Really? And did they really need Ephialtes have his hunchback licked by the Persian whores when he betrays Sparta in order to tempt him to join Xerxes? All of this is completely unnecessary (but entertained me quite a bit because it was so ridiculous).
The ending was just a whole lot of wrong. So, as I said, towards the end we see the soldier talking to the entire army to pump them up for their battle. OK, so I assumed at this point we would see the last triumphant battle filled (of course) with tons of slow motion. But the film ends abruptly as they run off into the distance........um what? So we never know how this entire military campaign ends? So Leonidas just died in vain? Did Sparta win? All unanswered questions. It invalidates having sat through the entire film.
I have nothing more to say because I'm so disgusted by this film. Final Score: 3....only for its (unintentional) comedic effect. I seriously thought it was a parody throughout the first half hour until I realized: oh dear God, they're serious.
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