300; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Male Dudity

So, a brief review of "300," the movie that is, well, everywhere right now:

I want to start by saying I did my absolute best not to get excited about this movie. Previews have been showing everywhere for at least six months, my wife has been begging to see the movie for at least that long, and despite all the positive word-of-mouth and exuberant test screenings, I have been doing my absolute best NOT to give into the hysteria. Why? Well, because I've been burned by movies like "300" before. If we take the preview at face value, here's the information we know: 1) it's based on a comic book. This is a hit-and-miss proposition. 2) it is hyper, hyper stylized. Again, although I love to see the cinematic art form advance, I'm sick of movies that think crazy editing and pretty pictures equals significant growth for motion pictures. For evidence of this, see movies like "Domino." And 3) it's written by Frank Miller. Alright Joe, hold on - let me clarify: I love Frank Miller's comics, they're brilliant. We're not disputing that. But there's something that happens when you take the badass-ness of a Miller comic, with all its dark pictures and brooding dialogue, and attempt to turn it into a movie. It's very possible I am the only 25 year old man on the planet who didn't really like "Sin City." To me, the movie pushed the noir style about two steps too far, and suffered for it. I didn't like the sexual exploitation of women in the film, and I felt that the "noir" dialogue, with all its curt one-liners, ended up hammy and stupid in the finished product. Also, Michael Madsen is one of the worst actors ever. And the movie was slow. And everything except for the Marv storyline had big, big flaws all over it. But that's not the issue. Let's get back to "300":

So, what's going on with this movie? Well, I have to say: I thought it rocked. Director Zack Snyder brings a visual flair to the film that extends beyond mere panache and works to actively engage the medium of film itself. To pare that down a bit: this movie looks like a series of moving paintings, one after the other, and it does this very, very, very deliberately. In addition to the plain kick-ass-ness of the fight scenes (I've never cheered for men in loincloths before...), the movie frames itself brilliantly, letting the hyper-stylized movement of it all - the hard rock soundtrack, the slow motion scenes, the giants, the mutants, the innumerable waves and waves of Persian soldiers - take place as a campfire story, told by the only surviving Spartan from the Battle of Thermopylae to a new army of Spartans on the eve of a new battle. This simple narrative device allows so much of what follows to embrace the fantastic in a way that feels, somehow, entirely authentic, and gives license to our own lionizing of these soldiers. In a word, "300" is impressive. In terms of the artistic nature of the direction, the "moving-portrait" approach to the cinematography not only thrills the viewer as a work of art, it uses the nature of cinema to enhance the power of a story. This is, of course, no small task - many a movie is made that gains nothing by actually BEING a movie - "300" could not work the same way in any other medium.

Of course, the film isn't without its flaws. I felt the emphasis on a sexual economy for the women in the film was condescending, and although the film's opening in Sparta works to build up the strength of its one female lead, episodes later in the film, including an encounter with an oracle and an incredibly inarticulate subplot involving a weasel of a senator, undercut all the progress the film's opening makes. I also felt that the militaristic dedication of Sparta, however historically accurate, was translated here for specifically political purposes - the Spartans' violent resistance to the decidedly black Persian empire shifts at some point in the film from an attempt to "defend our wives and children" to a need to kick the asses of all "others" in order to communicate the message of "freedom." Certainly, incorporating lines like "Freedom isn't Free," which is also a popular conservative bumper sticker slogan, into the dialogue of a film in which the decidedly white Greeks go to war against the evil armies of the Middle East can't be entirely chalked up to chance. In any case, the lack of any sustained emphasis on either of these points keeps them from deeply troubling the film, but I think it would be remiss to not point them out at least in passing.

Alright, so to wrap this up: "300" is an exciting, incredibly beautiful and visceral war movie that energizes film as a medium and whose hyper-stylized battle sequences will, without any doubt, be picked up and copied by every crappy action movie for the next five years, ad nauseum. We will refer to this occurance as the "Matrix effect," and we will do our collective best to weather the storm.

"300" - 3 1/2 out of 4 stars