300: Not a Review

I was jogging through the mammoth parking lot of the suburban Silvercity multiplex, rapidly getting soaked by the weekend downpour. Heero was waiting for us at the entrance steps and we quickly exchanged my rain-drenched e-mail receipt for our movie tickets. Convenience fees are a joke.

This was my first IMAX experience at a Silvercity theater and I can't say the screen felt a lot bigger. I suppose it was wider and curved in at the edges more than normal. Great. Even 35 minutes prior to screening and the plum seats were already filled. We were lucky to have a band of guys shift over a seat so all three of us could sit together and hold hands. Awww.

The lights dimmed and, surprisingly, we got right down to the show. We were spared the 20 minute ad and trailer preamble! For the first time in a long while, I felt like my $15 ticket was actually worth something.

300 starts out like a pimped out, CG-rendered cinematic intro to a big budget video game. The sumptious visuals are a treat to behold from the opening frames and well into the blood-soaked climax of this 2 hour battle movie. You've probably heard or read about it already: the abs, they be toned and the blood runs very thick... to a point. There are spearings galore (and when someone gets run through with a spear, they get run through) and a sprinkling of beheadings and flying limbs to break up the monotony. Despite all the slaughter, the gore never pushed my squeamish buttons, nor does the movie slow down enough to portray the true horror of ancient close-combat.

Director Zack Snyder is simply happy to frame each scene as it were a painting and choreograph the beautiful action sequences like a slow-motion dance. Critics have mocked the overuse of slo-mo in 300 but I for one am thankful Snyder did not go the Tony Scott route and leave these crucial scenes entirely in the hands of an over-caffeinated editor. And while the movie is essentially one extended fight scene -- the first skirmish is the most harrowing, with diminishing returns as the body count increases -- it at least allows us to appreciate how effective a fighting force the Spartan soldiers really were. Wearing nothing more than undies and superfluous cloaks, they harnessed the full power of their simple shields and spears by facing their enemies in a phalanx. Shields linked and spears out, that's how these Spartans rolled.

I looked over at Bilbo during the first clash between Spartan and Persian and chuckled as he pantomined holding a video game controllor. Make no mistake about it, 300 is Troy for the gamer/fanboy generation. It's also the most visually arresting sword n' sandal epic to come down the pipe since the last Lord of the Rings movie.

The graphics, they be very good.