300
I saw 300 this weekend. After the fantastic Frank Miller adaptation Sin City (by Robert Rodriguez) and Zach Snyder's previous film, a remake of Dawn of the Dead, I had high hopes. The end result, however, was disappointing.
Some aspects of the film were great; in particular the first couple battle sequences are visually stunning. Eventually the battles become repetitive and many of the best moments of the film have already been ruined by being shown in the various trailers for the movie. In addition, the side plot involving the Spartan Queen isn't that interesting. Unlike Sin City I get the impression from various shot comparisons of the graphic novel 300 to the film that while Sin City took the look of the graphic novel it is based on, 300 is almost a verbatim translation to the screen of its graphic novel. This detracts from the movie because storytelling on film is different from in a novel. Adding more cinematic elements would have greatly benefited this movie. Almost all of the film was shot on a blue-screen set and it definitely shows. For such a special effects heavy movie, many of the backgrounds were completely flat and unrealistic. The language of 300 is also fairly annoying. The over-the-top, chest-pounding nature of the dialog wears thin very quickly. Sin City also used an unconventional style, but one fitting it's noir themes. In the end 300 wasn't horrible, but it wasn't too great either. 3/5
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