“When the boy was born, like all Spartans, he was inspected.”

A new era has arisen. It’s an era where people refer to Spartans as supernatural bad-asses. One guy had an arrow in his heart and he was still moving and speaking! Come on now, if that is not bad-ass I don’t know what is. An era where memorable quotes are yelled all over the place like “TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL!”.

Any movie that starts by displaying piles of infants’ skulls has to be worth a second glance. A deep raspy voice narrates. The man’s voice speaks of a boy. He tells this man’s story. All the theater is tense in their seats. Couples even agree not to snuggle up for this one; full attention is demanded. Everyone senses what will be a monumental movie.

The first scene with Leonidas as king is one of the most favored. We all knew it was coming. We waited for it, waiting for what we had watched on the trailer countless times. We see the infamous scene when Leonidas kicks the Persian messenger down into the random bottomless pit and the infamous, “This is madness!” quote. Even though we had seen it a million times in the trailer, the scene still impresses us. Also in the scene, a bit earlier, girls all cheered at Queen Gorgo’s (yes that is her name) snappy response to the poor educated, weak hearted, and despicable (no-where-near-as-awesome-as-a-Spartan) Persian messenger.



The movie itself should be admired for the art form it really is. Right from the trailer the weird lighting and mood of the shots had everyone drawn in. Does the shading and coloring look familiar? Does the emphasis on the color red ring a bell? That’s because Sin City, released in 2006 had the same emphasis on red and an artistic spin on the film itself. That is because both movies were based on Frank Miller’s graphic novels.

The sex scene, we can not leave that untouched, now can we? For we know King Leonidas didn’t (wink). Some found the sex scene to be a phenomenal one. Some thought it a bit... strange how it was cut and pieced together in short time intervals between each identical moan. Either way it was a sex scene and what is a monumental film with out a bit of nudity? Nothing, that’s what.

Xerxes; Our wonderful villain of a ‘god’. He is a funny character if you really look at him. He is a full fledged chonga. His painted on eyebrows, his love of gold, and all that manly make up. We all love to see Leonidas’s clever jokes that anger the Persian-chonga-god-of-eyeliner.

Later on in the movie, whenever a Spartan died, the audience could feel the remorse stab them in the heart. The ending is expected, because it is both history and obvious, but not one could help but hope that the Spartans would prevail. That those 300 men could kill millions. The first fighting scene showed us their capability and most believe that if it wasn’t for the broke-back traitor revealing the goat path, the Spartans would have had more than a chance.



Nevertheless, they don’t win. In the end, they all die, except Dilios after being asked to leave by Leonidas, his King, to passed on the legend. Honestly, I found Leonidas’s end pose a bit disturbing. He looked crucified. But all in all, his last will was astounding. Xerxes did bleed. Surely, if Leonidas’s spear had hit a centimeter to the right, Xerxes would have been no more… but whatever.

The movie had love, fighting, and incredible inspiration. You leave the theater wanting to kick something. Most importantly, it is bad-ass.

“Give thanks, my gallant and brave 300 - to victory!”