300 reasons why you shouldn't feel bad about skipping the film 300

Or at least my opinion why you shouldn't bother.

My full review of this can be found on blogcritics.org:

Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae is a real snoozer. Let's talk about the cinematography first. Everyone seems to have good things to say about the look of this film. My opinion is whatever hype you've heard about the stylistic phantasmagoria of 300 is seriously overrated. First off, the desaturated, high contrast, high speed film stock look has been around forever (films like LORD OF THE RINGS, MATRIX and GLADIATOR come to mind, but really they were talking about it being an established style when I started film school in 2000). So what made this film so unique? The whole film had a enclosed cheesy set sort of feeling to it, and even when they were outside defending the Hot Gates and facing the massive Persian army, I kept wondering if somewhere out there, Captain Kirk was waiting to get his Star Trek set back.

And for those of you who really liked the oracle scene with the girl swimming in the air. I'll concede that it was a nifty effect. My only problem with it was the pained look on her face. She was obviously holding her breath (they shot her underwater) but she was trying hard to appear as though she wasn't. She could have used some lessons from Miss Tyra Banks - from that episode of America's Next Top Model when the challenge was underwater photography. Even I found myself prefering to watch her boobies than her eyes popping out of her head like a drowning squirrel.
And when Zach slowed down the action to show the full effect of the fighting, I know he was going for something special, but I don't think he achieved his desired results. Cause he slowed them down to such an extent that I wanted to kick the projector to get it going again. It was like listening to a scratched record that just keeps repeating. repeating. repeating.

And what was with all the bad guys being black or having fake-and-bake tans, while all the Greeks were so white, and many of them had Scottish or English accents. That was kind of rude. And last time I checked, Most Greek guys are hairy. These guys were smoother than a babies butt. I mean, is Zack trying to reach the twenty-something gay demographic or what??!!? Speaking of what he's trying to accomplish, there's a great article in the Toronto Star by Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic history at the University of Toronto, called Sparta? No. This is Madness. He talks about the gross historical inaccuracies of the film, if you're interested. Remember folks, Titanic did well at the box office too and it was a huge piece of shite. So no matter what a movie grosses, just because a bunch of us wasted our money on it doesn't make it good.

Perhaps, we'll need to look more in depth at the story because it just oozes political rhetoric. The only problem is, the story isn't deep enough to analyze. So the only thing I'm going to say about the theme is I had a severe headache from getting pounded over the head with the message that 'we're in a fight for Western Civilization here folks'. Gee, when every other word they yell is "free" or "freedom", when Queen Gorgo tells us "freedom isn't free" (there's a funny reference to this line in a review in the NY Times by A.O. Scott where he says "Another movie — Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s “Team America,” whose wooden puppets were more compelling actors than most of the cast of “300” — calculated the cost at $1.05.")

But by far, the worst thing about this movie, was the gay Mr. Clean. Sorry, but all of you Rodrigo Santoro fans out there get ready for a shocker - he kind of sucked in this movie. He had more make up on than a two-dollar whore, and whoever applied the gold rings to his face did such a fabulous job that you could see the clear demarcation between the fake bronzer and the fake skin itself. Yuck!

And when Xerxes puts his hands on King Leonidas' shoulders, everyone in the audience laughed. It was moronic. I got so bored by this movie that I started to count the Star Wars rip offs: there's Jabba the Hut. And those guys in the masks sound like Darth Vadar. That little guy on the top of the hill looks like Yoda. But it seemed like Zach was throwing in a little bit of everything, cause even Frodo was there.

As the credits rolled, I turned to my friend and said "300 was brought to you this evening by the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines" and that's exactly how it felt - a poorly made propaganda film. Stupid, stupid, stupid. By the end, I was half expecting the national anthem, so I held my hand over my heart, just in case.

God Bless America.