Cheryl and I watched 300 over the weekend and it is has to be one of the best movie that we have seen in years. The visuals were stunning, to say the least, due to the movie being very faithful to Frank Miller’s comic reimagining of the Battle of Thermopylae.
Interestingly, I’ve read somewhere that Miller was inspired by another film in the sixties called “300 Spartans”. With the improvement in visual effects, scoring, editing, the director of this movie, Zack Synder, follows closely in the footsteps of George Lucas who pioneered a new form of movie making with minimal sets, spectacular special effects and word-of-mouth inducing viral web marketing (the web featured documentaries of the movie a year before the movie was released). The difference is that while the Star Wars prequels are visually stunning and story-wise poor, 300 is a winner in both aspects.
One thing to note for Malaysian viewers is that the Malaysian Censors have been very liberal with the cuts in the movie. Most of the “R” rating stuff like gore and nudity is intact in the version shown here. The only noticable cut is the love scene between Leonidas and Queen Gorgo (what a name…).
Watch it.
View the trailer here.