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Review: Spartans rule lush world in '300'
Graphic visuals, unnatural colors infuse bloody goings-on
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`300'
Opens today: Century Downtown, Century Rio, Cottonwood, Four Hills, High Ridge, Winrock
Rated: R
Running time: 117 min.
Director: Zack Snyder
Grade: B
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Director: '300' isn't Iraq
Even before its release, "300" was stirring up discussion about its possible allusions to the war in Iraq.
"I guess that's unavoidable," says director Zack Snyder. "I tried to make a movie that looked at the nobility of conflict, and is there such a thing. I didn't do it in relationship to what's happening now because I . . . don't have that much foresight - I wish I had.
"The point is only that there can be nobility in sacrifice. That is a real thing. In some way, does that give context to sacrifice that we've maybe lost in the muddle, in the gray, of our current situation? Is there a way to get that back?"
Snyder doesn't have the answers. But to those who would consider President Bush a modern-day Xerxes, using mighty U.S. forces to invade the autonomous nation of Iraq, he would call the connection a stretch.
"The story's . . . over 2,000 years old," he says. "Does history have some sort of bad habit of just being a big circle? Yeah. But is that part of my design? I don't think so."
Betsy Pickle/Scripps Howard News Service
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Three hundred Abercrombie models vs. almost 6 million Persian soldiers wouldn't seem a fair fight.
These Abercrombie models, though, are Spartans. In Sparta, they literally throw away the babies who don't look like they'll grow up to be tough enough. The pre-pubescents aren't schooled in grammar or long division - they're thrust into the bitter cold of the wild to learn, firsthand, the fine art of bloody face-punching.
The king of these unnaturally selected uber-troopers, once they grow up and their abs start popping, is Leonidas. As a child, Leonidas killed a monstrous wolf with a perfect staff thrust through its brain. Now he's older and even more nuts.
So, these Spartans are basically bred to be perfect soldiers. Let the wild slow- then fast-motion battles begin. Things get very bloody after Xerxes - the king who fancies himself a god but looks more like an all-star power forward - demands Sparta submit to his rule.
"300" is out of its mind. The digital effects come screaming off the screen, not just during the fight scenes, but whenever a woman gets naked (this happens often). The plot is meant to be glorious, and it sort of is. It's a story of men who gladly chose to fight and die, rather than be anything but free.
Like "Sin City," "300" is based on a Frank Miller graphic novel. Miller's style is distinctly comic-book, but the film's director, Zack Snyder, nails it.
There are at least a dozen frames that would make for fine prints in a creepy art gallery (a tree garnished with staked corpses comes to mind, or a mass of Persian soldiers being pressed over a cliff's edge). None of the blue-screen-infused set pieces looks real, per se, but each is amazing to take in. The movie gushes with colors you didn't even know existed.
Unlike "Sin City," "300" doesn't stay cranked at full blast. After a fast and vicious opening sequence, it takes too long to serve up more action. To say the film takes liberties with the true events of 480 B.C. is putting it mildly, so do we really need all the go-nowhere dialogue?
There's also a pointless subplot involving Leonidas' wife back in Sparta. It's exactly the sort of thing cutting-room floors were made for.
And the whole thing is pretty goofy - in a good way. Leonidas talks a lot of trash, and in his better moments he screams lines like: "Ready your breakfast and eat hearty, for tonight we dine in hell!"
We are, after all, dealing with a body count here that could conceivably be in the five-figure range.
Might as well have fun with that, right?
