Film Review No. 4

300 - Wrestlemania two and a half millenia before Hulk Hogan
Director: Zack Snyder, based on the graphic novel of the same title by Frank Miller

The military commanders of the Persian empire are idiots. There are a number of ways of defeating 300 Spartans however 'elite' their combat skills may be:

1. Archers. Why they never thought of using flaming arrows is puzzling. Their archers using normal arrows can blot out the sun but the Spartans can just block them with their shields. But imagine if these are fire-tipped arrows. The wasted arrows hitting the ground will keep burning due to the thousands of arrows they rained down on the Spartans. They can even use their 'sorcerers' to first rain down oil or gunpowder on the Spartans' narrow pass before shooting the flaming arrows.

2. Shock Cavalry. Engaging the Spartans will spear-wielding heavy cavalry will be effective. Match the Spartans' shorter spears (historically correct since phalanx warfare with longer spears was used at a much later date by the Macedonians) with cavalry troops using longer spears. The rest of the momentum will be taken care of by the excellent horses of the Persians.

3. Siege weapons. What can those greek shields do with catapult volleys? Or giant spears hurled by ballistae? Okay, if the persians around 400BC were too dumb to develop military engineering, maybe they should consider #4.

4. Sappers. Have sappers dig an alternate access point behind the pass to pin the Spartans eventually. If the mountainous area is too thick for sappers then see #5.

5. Find a totally different route. Why waste your men on 300 Spartans when you can go around the mountains? The persians have travelled a long way from their country and it wouldn't hurt to walk a little distance around that mountain to avoid the 300 Spartans. Or, heck, just go over that damn mountain. Hannibal did that on the Alps.

Leonidas is a dictator. It's enough kicking the Persian messenger's ass for hurling insults but start a war without the council's consultation? The Spartan king's undemocratic war against terror (ahem, ahem) just wasted the lives of brainwashed idealistic warriors.

But of course I was talking about the movie and graphic novel flowery account. Herodotus' written history of the battle tells a different tale. First, the major city-states of ancient Greece have already formed alliances prior to the Battle of Thermopylae. Guarding the pass was a strategic move to trap the Persians while the Greek Navy eradicates the Persian Navy in the Aegean. The plan was to defeat the Persian Navy and control the sea so that the entire land troops of the Persian Empire starves to death while trapped between the sea and the mountains with no supplies. Secondly, Leonidas had thousands of Greek allies with them guarding the pass of Thermopylae. The Persians managed to surround the army through a secret passage used by goat herds, thanks to a Greek traitor, and the Greeks decided to abandon the pass. Not to mention, the sea battle became a stalemate. It is at this point that the Spartans vowed to sacrifice their lives in order for the other Greeks to leave the battle and fight another day. Sure there were 300 Spartans as Herodotus tells us but they were joined by some Greeks who also decided to stay and fight to the death. It was said that the Spartans' decision to stay was further fueled by the Oracle's word that a decendant of Heracles has to die in order for Sparta not to fall to foreign rulers. The kings of Sparta claimed to be descendants of Heracles.

So the bottomline of the written history is that Sparta was never alone in the war and the defenders of Thermopylae count more than 300 whether you consider the headcount before or after the Greek retreat.

On to my verdict!

Script - 8/10 for the down-to-earth script. The lines are not mushy and the characters use proverbs reminiscent of ancient Greece. The script has to be excused as fiction though.

Cinematography - 8/10. Majority of the scenes are shot in studio blue screens. Had they shot the film in the same quality as LOTR i would have given then a 10/10. The superb effects and faithful adaptation of the graphic novel strips compensate for this though.

Acting - 5/10. You don't need actors on this film. You need guys with non-existent beer bellies.

Music - 6/10. The music was okay in the beginning. They even showed a Spartan soldier on the march playing the Aulos (a double-barelled wind instrument that sounds like an oboe). Then suddenly in the fight scenes you hear heavy guitar distortions. I feel like seeing Triple H, Sean Michaels, Rey Mysterio and Batista amidst the Spartans. The period movie feel was utterly destroyed by the use of WWE-inspired entrance music.

Direction - 7/10. Direction was good from the overall design of effects to the details of the fight scenes. The acting direction can be excused but the choice of music is unforgivable.

300 is one action movie I wanna keep in my shelves. Sure, the script is historically skewed and character development in the script is negligible. Majority of action movies are like this anyway. But the visual effects and fight choreography redefine what action movies should look like.