300
DIR: Zack Snyder • WRI: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Michael Gordon • PROD: Mark Canton, Bernie Goldman, Gianni Nunnari, Jeffrey Silver • DOP: Larry Fong • ED: William Hoy • DES: James D. Bissell • CAST: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Michael Fassbender

Seeing the upcoming 300 as the Surprise Film in the Dublin Film Festival was immeasurably fun, with the accompanying cheers from audience members as Frank Miller’s iconic slashed script burned onscreen. An entertaining and fun epic was well and truly unleashed!

What hits you first are the visuals, stunning even in a post-Sin City world. Using a fairly progressive process of colour balancing, pioneered by the director Zack Snyder, the black content of the film image is crushed and the colour saturation is enhanced. This gives the movie it’s unusual contrast, and the distinctive look that marks 300 as a welcome addition to the graphic novel’s transition to screen.  Preceded by Sin City, Frank Miller’s latest big-screen outing is as fast paced and electrifying as the last. With its gloriously historical sense, larger-than-life characters, and the thrilling rush of its battles, Zack Snyder has helped bring to celluloid a singular smorgasbord of entertainment.

The zippy dialogue and powerful back-story only adds to the epic feel of this movie. It traces Leonidas, the King of Sparta, from his beginnings as a small child during the warrior training all Spartan boys must undertake, to his destiny as leader of the Spartan advance against Persian invaders. The Spartan council votes against fighting Xerxes’s Persian army, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, but Leonidas is a man of courage and conviction, and takes 300 men to Thermopylae to greet the Persian army the Spartan way.

The battles are stupendous, and the attention to detail and enlivening of each individual warrior lifts this movie above its peers. Were it not for the on-the-button acting from a kingly Gerard Butler, strong Lena Heady and an epic-worthy David Wenham, 300 could have gone the way of Troy. Thankfully, there is no ego evident in this movie, and the actors carry themselves with as much gravity and strength as the roles require. 

When faced with the thousands of Persian troops, the elephants and rhinos, the ships landing on their beaches, these 300 men stand strong and powerful, continuously looking like the dominant force. From the slowed-down contact of warrior to warrior, followed by fast-paced hand to hand combat, and a soaring camera looking down on the thousands of Persians rushing at the immovable wall of Spartans, the battles are lovingly rendered. Learning about the Spartan way of fighting, such as the shield being held to protect your neighbouring soldier, makes the scenes when you see these lessons in action all the more honest and exhilarating.

Owing much to the epic battle scenes of Lord of the Rings, 300 nonetheless thrills all over again. Exciting and fun, it hits all the right notes of entertainment. The acting, story and visuals are beyond reproach, and the only question of doubt for cinemagoers is how much epic-ness they can take. 

First Sin City and now 300… fanboys, look sharp – a new era of filmmaking is upon us, and it’s only going to get better!

Sarah Griffin

Rated 15A (see IFCO website for details)
300 is released on 23rd March 2007.
300 – Official website