*300

Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by Frank Miller (graphic novel), Lynn Varley (graphic novel), Zack Snyder (screenplay), Kurt Johnstad (screenplay), Michael B. Gordon (screenplay)

Two notes:

1) In an episode of Futurama, the head of Pamela Anderson once noted that the fictitious Baywatch: The Movie was the first movie to be shot completely in slow-motion. A damned fine honor, that one, and history may prove that 300 comes in at a pretty close second, at around 85% slow-motion.

2) Where can I attend the Dr. Orpheus school of making every statement into a Proclamation For The Ages?

I kid, because I love. People complain that 300 is short on plot, but I disagree. It’s not that there’s not enough plot, it’s that it’s a simple, straightforward, exceedingly efficiently-handled plot. The Persian army is out to conquer the world, but when they reach Sparta, King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, ripped) and 299 of his most loyal soldiers say no. And so, at one geographically strategic point, we have wave after wave of battle after battle – Persians invade, Spartans defend. Persians invade, Spartans defend.

Not a ton in terms of character development, which is obviously Frank Miller’s point. The Spartans are soldiers. That’s it. That’s their character. From birth they are conditioned and trained to be soldiers. To act as soldiers. To fight as soldiers. In this sense, the wave after wave of battle after battle IS character drama, IS character development (to argue otherwise would be the same as saying that Sophie’s Choice had no character development, because at no point do we see Meryl Streep pick up a rocket launcher and blow up Nazi tanks).

And along the way, we have bombs, elephants, rhinoceri, too many jaw-dropping moments and images to name here (I gasped audibly the first time I saw Xerxes' (Rodrigo Santoro, absolutely unrecognizable from his as-yet walkon role on TV's LOST) “walking temple”). And a subplot involving the Queen (Lena Headey) trying to convince the Spartan high council to send more troops (mileage varies).

With his surprisingly watchable Dawn of the Dead remake and now 300, Zack Snyder is definitely proving himself as a broody-action-thriller filmmaker. One has cautious hopes for his Watchmen adaptation, though one would imagine that story would call for a more naturalistic, less stylized (and much less CGI) treatment, and anyway how anyone is going to cram that whole story into just two hours is beyond me.