300

This blog post is completely off topic for this blog, but I have a unique opportunity so I'm going to take advantage. Last night I got to go to an advanced screening for the new, and at this moment still not in theaters, movie 300. So this is my first attempt of being a movie critic.

I've never read the graphic novel, so I went into the screening knowing little about it. I knew it had Spartans and I've always been interested in ancient Greece and mythology.

The two things that stick out right away about this movie are first the story telling, which is much better then found in most movies. It is told as a story, and it seems natural, not forced as if it was the only way to make the movie. Second is the visuals are very well done. The blood, which in most movies looks stupid when it is in excess, looks great in this movie. So it is easy to say this movie is cool bloody fight scene after cool bloody fight scene.

The story is interesting but honestly was easy to predict. That didn't make it a bad story, just predictable early on. As I said the telling of the story was very well done.

The movie also blurs the line of whether this is an attempt to tell the a story as it "might" have happened. Sure the battles are unlikely but not fantasy, but there are a few characters which go over that line. That's fine and great in a movie, but it did seem a little awkward at times to understand the frame, mythology or fantastic. (But I've been told my thoughts on story framing are insane on a couple occasions. oh well.)

The movie overall had a feeling of being a combination of the Lord of the Rings and the Gladiator. In fact it had such a Lord of the Rings feeling that at one point the person next to me laughed the word oliphaunts. Hell the movie even has its own Gollum. Gollum you see early on, and immediately I thought of LOTR. Now given that you couldn't get rid of this character the oliphaunts were a horrible directing choice. It was a second reminder and took me, and it seemed others, out of the film.

Now I'm being critical but I did like the film. I'm glad I saw it and I'd recommend it. Not a masterpiece but enjoyable. If your interested in seeing it, see it in the theaters. The visuals are great and a TV won't do it justice.

One final thought about the film... There are nipples... lots and lots of nipples.