300 (DVD Screening)

(Spoilers)

With the release of 300 Rise of an Empire it was my idea that I should probably get round to watching the first 300 movie.  I didn’t quite get round to seeing it before Rise of an Empire but I watched it the night after.  I had seen the 300 spoof Meet The Spartans though, so I suppose that counts for something, eh? Often the case is with films if I see a certain one first I will be loyal to it and judge any future efforts against that so 300 was being judged against Rise of an Empire which I did really enjoy.  Also combined with the ridiculous hype around this film, so 300 did have a lot to live up to and I did have high expectations.

Ultimately these expectations were not met! 300 was pretty rubbish to be honest.  It started off well and with promise, the initial battle scenes were pretty cool and I was hoping to see more and more of that but after the first few scenes it went downhill at a drastic pace.  The final sequence was such an anticlimax I was expecting a badass final scrap between the two sides but no, all we got was all the Spartans being shot down by arrows, the arrow scene earlier in the film was pretty cool however there should have been something more for the finale.  There were of course some good scenes, all the famous ones with the quotes etc were good and delivered but apart from these it was fairly disappointing.

The lack of pace throughout was quite astounding and the slow motion didn’t help this.  Okay so slow motion in the battle scenes was pretty effective and worked well, but when mundane tasks are shown in slow motion it is taking the mick a bit like. There were a lot of scenes that showed the more political side of this story although these are necessary there were too many and they were drawn out far too long.  Without Gerard Butler this film would have been a categorical fail, his delivery of his lines and his presence on screen was enough to carry it through, but I even felt that he was underused and that there was much more potential there.

BIGGEST FLAW – Lack of battle scenes

BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT – Gerard Butler

Go see 300 Rise of an Empire, it is much better and pretty much encompasses the plot of 300 in about 10 mins, and that is all you really need.  300 could have been pretty fantastic but it had too many flaws holding it back!

Rating – 5/10