The 300 is tale of ancient Greece, and a group of Spartan warriors making a stand against the invading armies of Xerxes, King of Persia. Our primary hero is warrior-king Leonidas (Gerard Butler), who defies law and leadership to defend his beloved Sparta. He takes 300 of his best men (all volunteers) on a preemptive defensive strike against the armies of Xerxes. There is only one way to get entrance to Sparta, and that is through a small mountain passage; which the 300 will defend to the last man.

Each wave of military might to converge on the soldiers gets larger and more violent in confrontation. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), being the all knowing warrior god that he is, recognizes Leonidas’ leadership and tries to get him to come to the other side. Leonidas politely declines the offer, and more battling ensues. While all of this takes place away from home, Leonidas wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), tries to defend the King’s actions and makes a plea for understanding to the people. This all leads to intrigue and a glorious final showdown between the outnumbered Spartans and the armies of Xerxes.

The 300 is adapted from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel of the same name, and is as masterful in its own right. Director Zack Snyder has done a completely different film than his 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, and it is a welcome turn. I hate to be an art nerd, but that’s what I am – every frame of this film was like a painting from the neoclassical period. Those painters represented similar Greek and Roman stories in an idealized and fantastical environment. Each painting from artists like David and Ingres were meant to tell a story without words. The characters, mountains and skylines were not that of ancient Greece, but highly idealized versions much like the painters. I thought film had more similarities with paintings than with other movies, that’s what makes it stand out above the rest. Besides the visuals, I thoroughly enjoyed the 300; it was brutal, beautiful and thoroughly engaging.

By now, everyone probably knowns this was mostly filmed on a sound stage in front of a giant green screen. This, under most circumstances comes off as stale as 2 of the 3 last Star Wars films. But the characters, and scenery were seamlessly intertwined; kudos to the design team. And unlike the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, you are completely inside the action, mostly in slow motion. The masses of armies are so vast, they focus on the front lines mostly. Speaking of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, David Wenham (Faramir of LOTR) is in a supporting role as Dilios, fellow warrior to Leonidas. Since there was almost a fairy tale like story telling approach ( a very simple, straight forward story), I was completely sold on the fantasy. You get a brief back story on his life and the Spartan warrior class is started from childhood to adolescence, which was a throwback to high school when I first read stories about the Spartans. Man, the severed head count rivaled that of another one of my favorites, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.

The only little nitpick I have is that there were a lot of speeches. This really had the tendency to slow the pace down a little too much, and the slow romantic interludes didn’t help either. But this is a minor complaint, I get impatient sometimes. There was narration as in Miller’s Sin City, and it conveyed the graphic novel touch just as well. In one particular scene the narrator states that Leonidas is screaming, you see the slow motion image of Leonidas doing so, but you never hear a sound - oddly one of my favorite moments in the film (along with a fairly humorous scene about how civilized they are, all while the men are stacking a ton of dead bodies to create a defensive wall). The painterly touches of the film gave it something to stand on its own away from the book; you have never really ever seen anything quite like it before.

Extra Features:
Considering that this is a visual marvel, the extras on the DVD 2 disc set give insight into production design, and historical references. There are some deleted scenes, and Frank Miller stuff as well.