"300" - a historical Greek fantasy movie

This looks well good.


Official website

Fans of Gerard Butler should look forward to this one. He plays King Leonidas...no chocolates involved.



The lovely Lena Heady (of Brothers Grimm) is the lead actress.

OOOOOH!! There's a fabulous book by Steven Pressfield called "Gates of Fire" that deals with this famous battle. I will definately go see this when it comes out!!!

Edit: And Gerard Butler makes me all woozy inside...

I'd be interested in seeing this. Especially since I thought the movie Sin City was excellent.

Ohh very cool!

Also Hannibal the Conqueror is coming out in 2008.

Okay, not too keen on Vin Diesel playing Hannibal Barca. Although, if he doesn't speak...

Ooh yes. I can't wait until this Thursday.


Rotten Tomatoes has ranked at 61% on its Critics Tomatometer.

My mom was just telling me yesterday how fabulous this movie is. I'm excited to see it!

I've been excited for this movie to come out for months now! For those not aware, here are the high definition trailers, that look amazing!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/hd/

Cant help remembering Last samurai (2003) a Tom Cruise Movie

Algren: There was once a battle at a place called Thermopylae, where three hundred brave Greeks held off a Persian army of a million men... a million, you understand this number?
Katsumoto: I understand this number.

Katsumoto: What happened to the warriors at Thermopylae?
Algren: Dead to the last man.

We watched 300 last night...I was bored as hell about 1/3rd of the way through. If you like movies that go nowhere and are just a few speeches and "we're tough" statements...well, then you might get through it without walking out...but otherwise, I'm very glad I didn't pay to see it.

Somebody else isn't too impressed with the film.

And the Chinese complained about "Mulan". Fiction, f'r Chrissake! Look at what Hollywood did to "Gone With the Wind"!

Need I even mention "Far and Away"? As Ardal O'Hanlon would say, "I was outraged by the stereotyping. But I didn't complain."

I like the warning "Graphic battle scenes throughout".

Loads of warriors beating crap out of people? Looks superb to me. I don't care if the storyline does not really go anywhere, if there are loads of quality speeches about honour, and being tough, and then loads of massive battles with all swords and shit, then I am sold.

I have heard from 3 people about this flick...they have all said the same thing. Cool effects but lame overall

On a regular basis I fire on the Gladiator dvd and flick through the fight scenes, especially the first games in Rome.

If this is more of the same then I echo Mr. Riinas sentiments. I'll take action and drama for entertainment over historical accuracy or plot any day.

Soundtrack sounds great as well.

An x-boyfriend of mine used to do that. I love historical movies but Gladiator was one boring movie.

edit: I shouldn't make jokes...not before I start drinking...

Are you guys kidding??
This is SUCH a great movie. Very artistically done and soooo much eyecandy.
Can't wait for this to come out on BluRay.

From someone who does Sex in the City nights, your opinion does not really count...

Gladiator kicks arse!!

I watched this in bed last night and thought it was a pretty good film.

What did you watch??

300

Hey all,
I'm confused. The thread says the release date is the 22nd, but everywhere I look it seems like the earliest I can see it is the 4th. Where are people seeing this film? I'm only interested in English without subtitles, so perhaps that's limiting me. I checked IMDB and it confers with the movie websites... the release date isn't until the 5th of April

The hype is apparently sweeping the US, for your amusement:

link 1

link 2

I loved this movie! I don't always need movies to have any deep moral or meaning, sometimes I just enjoy a couple hours of solid entertainment and this movie was great. I thought it was visually stunning.

I didn't want to see it despite the hype. In fact I fought and resisted the whole way to the theatre, but I was outnumbered by 3 so I ended up watching it convinced I'd be bored. I was embarrassed to say that I adored it and would watch it again because I so strongly protested watching it to begin with. I'm the type that gets bored by gratuitous violence and nudity in a film, and this movie had both nudity and violence but they fit and were done in a way it added to the overall impression of the film.

It's visually arresting but in terms of dialogue, plotting, acting it's a little under par, a wee bit shakey. Lena Headey simply can't act. Pretty though she may be, a melting Band-Aid has more ability to display emotion, it's uncanny.

And it's the most knowingly homo-erotic movie ever, should be subtitled "Y.M.P.A.A - Young Mans Persian Assmunchingkicking Association".

I think if you can put all that aside, it's very enjoyable, the battle scenes are, for wont of a better word, sumptuous and pure spectacle and if that's what you came for, it's what you'll get and in spades. The scene where the sky blackens with arrows is really cool and you get the feeling that this film says unashamedly that war is cool and men enjoy warfilms and this is entertainment so lets make a big bloody, hardman war movie without guns, with lots of shouting and bloodsplattering and gritting of teeth and shouting "hoooo" or something and of course it's bad but doesn't war look cool.

I quite enjoyed it on the whole. If you liked Gladiator, you'll love this.

The only thing missing in the film was a nice cake.

hey guys,
Sorry to be dense.. but where are you seeing this in Munich?

Seems it starts next Wednesday here.

I'm well up for going seeing this sometime soon.

I don't think you can watch it earlier than next Wednesday: http://www.cinema-muenchen.de/englisch/finhalt.asp?nr=3601

(I have a feeling the people who wrote about it here who live in Munich may not have seen it in a movie theater, if you know what I mean...

I am still undecided if I want to see it or not.

good call Wee Mun. I hate SATC; I find it's so stereotyped!

after visiting Rome a few weeks agao, we watched Gladiator again, it's still awesome.

deffo gonna see 300 over the easter weekend, can't wait. a mate in England saw it and reckons it's a good chick flick; we should 'take towels to the cinema to dry up the droolings'

Just watched the scene in Troy where Achilles's ship beaches and he and his men advance into the hail of Trojan fire arrows. Men fall dead around the ship. skewered in the very moment that their war begins but those that survive rally on Achilles and form a protective wall with their shields before advancing together. You can hear the metal grating on metal, the deadly arrows tearing holes in the air, that breathing of the warriors, their shouts of encouragement to each other, you can practically smell the anger and the adrenalin, you know that their armour is drenched with sweat, their muscles are quivering with tension, their feet fight for purchase on the wet sand and their mouths are full of the coppery taste of fear.

Historically accurate? Probably not, but I have a healthy grasp of reality and can deal with that.

Great cinematic battle scene? Most certainly and that is what I want to watch. I want to be lifted out of real life for some moments and be transported into the film makers vision. Even those who make the film cannot know who each person will receive it and interpret it.

Just as we all have a different grasp of reality, some firmer than others, some closer to the real truth than others, our interpretation of cinema is at once formed from outside and also very personal. If 300 is well done I will enjoy it but my enjoyment of it will differ in myriad ways from that of another viewer. My experiences will connect me to a scene ín a unique way. On one level the shared human experience will make the broad brush strokes, but the finer lines that make my personal version of the film will come from what I know, even if I cannot say exactly why.

Or as WeeMun put it, Gladiator kicks arse, and I hope that 300 does too.

The way the fight scenes are filmed is well cool and way better than Troy

Gladiator got the major epic movies trend going again, reminiscent of the Yul Brynner/Stephen Boyd movies of the 50s and 60s. Great entertainment, and not that it really matters, but it's Ancient History Light, to say the least.

@Jules

Of course it is Ancient History Light or perhaps even Ancient History Not.

No normal person expects to be educated by these films, they want entertainment with perhaps a grain of truth or a worthwhile message.

tell that to these guys.

oo got Troy for 5€ in S&H the other day gonna watch it tonight. haven't seen it for yonks but do remember I still preferred Gladiator.

Isn't this a film based on a graphic novel inspired by a legend about an historical event. So expecting historical accuracy may be asking a bit much.

Close, the movie is based on a graphic novel inspired by a movie based on an actual historical event

Damn right, everbody knows it was really 272 guys, two midget ninjas and a battle droid made from a toaster and a hedgetrimmer.

Nobody remembers midget ninjas.

But they do have midget ninjas. You'll see. Oh, you'll see...

I think Butler bases his Leonidas on Brian Blesseds Prince Vultan.

"Second wave...DIE!!".

There are worse things to be based on.

I think I want to watch "300" not only for the battle scenes but also for the subtle dialog.

"Tonight, we dine in hell"

This is one of the first things I planned for my trip home tomorrow. I will go see it at IMAX on Friday with a friend that I've managed to keep from going to see it before I get there. I hope its worth the ticket price It will be the only movie I go see in 2007 I believe...

"Madness? This is Sparta!"

You're gonna enjoy this one. Think Gladiator meets Lord of the Rings meets Saving Private Troy at Sin Citys stag night.

Say all you want... but when that movie is turned into a Broadway musical, I will link to this post so you can all see how smart I am.

(Off Broadway counts too)

I expect this film to have the same effect that watching a Bruce Lee film had on the unsuspecting populace of the small town where I grew up.

Back then, no sooner were the doors of the cinema opened to release the patrons into the light but the air was filled with Kerry accented "Hiyah"'s as innocent bins were attacked, lamposts bicycle kicked and friends greeted with brutal kung fu chops to the neck. For a week afterwards people were still hurting themselves while attemping to kick beermats while turning in midair and so on.

This time a phalanx of wannabe Spartans will charge from the theater, forming a human shield before the popcorn machine, a fight to the death will take place and the butter will flow in rivers of retribution. The rolled up cinema programs will become swords.

As long as nobody decides to fight naked it will probably all end well.

Too late.

Just finished watching this and it was far better than what I expected. Visually it's the best movie I've seen. Kick arse fight scenes loads of gore, blood and limbs flying about. Awesome.

Oh yes. Fahkeeeng kickass. Lingering pornographic decapitation is the new black. Seriously, it's beautiful to watch, the more I see it, the more in awe of the visuals I become.

I've watched this about eight times in the past couple of weeks now and I still can't get enough of it. I admit that the dialog isn't all that special (although I do like the monologue spoken by David Wenham), but the graphics are very impressive. Excellent direction by Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) and nice cinematography by Larry Fong (Lost TV series). Hats off to the production team with use of some clever technology:


Plenty of blue screen and some green scene shooting in the Montreal studio. And a powerful soundtrack by Tyler Bates, although I would've like to hear Nine Inch Nails in the movie and not just in the trailers. Still, an awesome visual feast something I haven't seen on this scale since the Wachowski brothers' Matrix. And I just love those Immortals, the god-king Xerxes's warrior elite.




Theron: It is the law, my lord. The Sparta army must not go to war.
Leonidas: Nor shall it. I gave no such orders. I'm here just taking a stroll, just stretching my legs. These...ah...three hundred men are my personal bodyguard.

I officially love this film. If anybody else would like to see it is the question.

Its definetly a thoroughly fascist film. Its completely stupid, sometimes almost boring and its all too easy to project it on the iraq situation and yes again, it is very much fascist in 'message' and Image. Bet Leni Riefenstahl would've killed for that technology.

That being said, i almost took my sword and went to search for an honorable foe to test myself against after seeing the movie. So that makes it a fascistoid film that even works on me. Dunno if that is a compliment of sorts. I guess it is.

Probably going to see it again soon , its been a while since i last felt that little fascist in me.