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A cult classic in the making, 300 cuts it
300
Directed by Zack Snyder
Certificate 15
PITTING 300 warriors against a marauding army numbering a million men may not seem like brilliant odds, unless of course they all happen to be called Jean-Claude Van Damme.
But this gory mix of history, myth and fantasy is the story of the legendary 300 heroes who fought off the advancing Persian hordes in the battle of Thermopylae in 480BC to save ancient Greece from annihilation.
Devotees of the sword-sandals-and-sweat brigade will have a field day as writer-director Zack Snyder gives it the full Hollywood CG (computer-generated) treatment, based on Frank Miller’s original ‘graphic novel’ – or comic-book adventure to you and me.
In 1962 Richard Egan had a stab at it (so to speak) with The 300 Spartans – but nothing like this.
It seems the Spartans were reared from birth to fight. Never retreat, never surrender. We get a taste of the carnage to come when we meet the teenage future King Leonidas, abandoned in a snowbound cave to fend for himself.
Attacked by a giant wolf with glowing yellow eyes, he dispatches it with his trusty spear after luring it into a narrow crevasse – just as he would do with the Persians years later.
With their charismatic king at their head (Gerard Butler, sporting a permanent scowl and a beard bristling like a hedgehog on heat), the Spartans hold their ground in a rocky crevasse between high cliffs, where the enemy can only attack in small groups.
On the surface, the spectacle must have cost zillions. The entire horizon is filled with seething figures like a nest of ants as the Persian forces advance, complete with elephants. But look closer, and you realise there are only a handful of sets – a beach, a clifftop, a council chamber, a palace courtyard – while the rest is digital illusion. Clever Mr Zack!
The body count is truly enormous.
The statuesque Spartan queen is played by British actress Lena Headey, somehow keeping a straight face as she bids her husband farewell: “Come back with your shield… or on it!”
In fact there is a very pink tinge permeating the action, and not just the gouts of gore. Try leather and lust. The megalomaniac Persian leader Xerxes himself is seven feet tall, semi-naked and effeminate, his shaven head swathed in jewellery, flailing a whip across the backs of his slaves as he strides over their crouching bodies.
The Spartans fight wearing only loincloths, crimson cloaks and helmets, and there’s a lot of talk about dying “beautiful deaths”.
But it’s a heroic endeavour. And just could – and should – become a cult classic. |
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