There have been countless movies made about the Spartan's defence against the Babylonians, but having never seen any of them I feel unqualified to compare it to them.

Sparta are a proud Greek warrior people. If any of their offspring are seen to have a defect they are discarded - only the best will do. So when a Babylonian messenger asks them to submit to his power they are unable to comply, killing him and his companions.

Obviously this insults Xerxes, the Babylonian ruler who has overthrown many other nations and tribes, so he prepares to fight. But they are unable to get permission to go to war because the religious creatures (and they are creatures) will not permit it.

So the Spartan king goes for a walk towards the coast with 300 bodyguards...

The style of this film is excellent. I'm told that it is much like Sin City in the way it is filmed and there is much, much action throughout. There is much bloodshed but then what would an ancient battle be without it? So in this context it is fitting. However the blood is also done in an odd artistic manner, red cartoonish flecks flying from wounds. If you don't like blood then this isn't your kind of film.

The storyline and characters are believable and despite having initially hated the Spartans for killing their "unfit" babies, I felt strangely aligned with them as they faught for freedom from the opressing Babylonians.

There was some controversy about this film, which at this point is all but plastered on film posters as a reason why people should watch it. Understandably though some in the Arab world have objected to the depiction of their ancestors as perverse monsters, but to some extent I must admit I see their points.

God-King Xerxes is dressed in an over the top and oddly homoerotic costume. Other henchmen are portrayed as straightout goblin-style monsters and similar. The get out clause used by the studio is that it is based on a fantasy book, which was loosely based on the Spartan war. Still, plagarising from a plagarised essay would still be plagarism. So adding an extra layer of distance between yourself and a controversial concept is the equivalent of a mass murderer pointing at a murderer and saying "He started it".

As a film this was mostly enjoyable. Sometimes the battle was just too fast for me to see what was going on. The bedroom scene between the Spartan king and his wife may have shown how close they were, but their closeness was quite clear already. Nudity was used quite literally for the sake of "sexing up" the first portion of the film.

So although this film had some brilliant action, believable plot and interesting subject, it also had some pointless nudity and probably offended a large portion of the arabic nations. So its no surprise that it did well at the box office.

see also:
Die Hard 4.0, Limitless, Taken, The Sum of all fears

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