All right, so we all know 300 is gay. Hardly insightful, but let’s just get the obligatory homo-hyperbole out of the way before we progress any further since it is the very pillar of the film — Doric, I’d wager. My apologies, but stupid column types have occupied brain space since 4th grade and needed to be douched.
Basic Overview: Chiseled Greeks in Snuggies brutally plowing your orbits for 100 minutes with raw masculinity. You want to exclude gays from the military? Screen 300 in boot camp and have the drill sergeant perform random crotch taps. “Jesus H. Christ, Pyle! Are you a fudgepacker!?” All the gays will be purged from the military and will then occupy themselves by adopting Christian children tragically orphaned by dumb wars.
Two minutes into the film, I upped the customary single-seat gay buffer zone from my male friends to a full row. At that moment, I assumed that every man in the theater, gay or not, would soon be helplessly jerking off their male companions through popcorn tub glory holes. Within the first 10 minutes of the film, a cunning attempt is made to quell the imminent Tsunami of Fabulous growing in the audience by verifying that the Spartans are totally not gay. They do this by referring to the Athenians as “Boy-Lovers,” which *whew* instantly absolves the Spartans from their implied lustings, much in the same way homophobic jocks deftly hide their locker room desires by calling every nude bathing associate a fag.
This movie is extremely thin, even for one based on a “graphic novel,” which is what Nerd Spin Doctors use to divert attention away from the sad reality of “comic book.” It chronicles the macho strut of King Leonidas, a bullheaded Spartan King who must rally all of the warring Greek city-states together in an effort to prevent a bleak future of mulatto children. His stout leadership is naturally undermined by schemers, greedy politicians and ugly people, so he must subvert the laws of his land and cling to the core Spartan values, those being stabbing and growling every word through bared teeth.
The tale of 300 is narrated by a One-Eyed Warrior who has a really annoying, warbling voice with an accent of indeterminate origin. I only mention him because he is the wielder of most of the film’s non-shouted dialog, with the rest being lame verbal judo to every presented challenge or yelling, “Push!” like it was max-out day on flat bench. I’ll say no more about him, because he is a dick.
The mighty 300 set off to break the spirit of the coming Persian hordes with their superior skill and a great geographical advantage which places them firmly in a crevasse shaped like a rectum. This essentially encompasses the bulk of the film.
The Spartans form an impenetrable wall of shield and spear, varying squads of Novelty Darkies attack and are repelled. Form wall, Novelty Beasts associated with darkie countries are repelled. Everything is shot in sultry slow motion, so the violence and the attempted poetic motion that fuels it can be savored for maximum effect and shallowness.
Common means cannot best the impossibly outnumbered Spartans, so treachery is the only route to their undoing. In accordance with the established theme, the mighty Yin of the physically perfect Spartans can only be undermined by the weak-willed Yang of the grossly malformed.
The honorless Hunchback, Rocky Dennisus, quickly finds his way into the favor of the invading Persian King after being snubbed by Leonidas. The rival King, Xerxes, is a truly perplexing combination of Barry White’s Voice, The Creepiness of a Tucked Jame Gumb and the NBA center of your choosing. He also has so much gold shit hanging on his face that it looks like he got bukkaked by King Midas.
Xerxes offers up the Hunchback boundless pleasure in exchange for the means to defeat Leonidas. This boundless pleasure package includes some sex with some equally deformed butterfaces and, inexplicably, a fucking wizard hat.
So, we see the betrayed Spartans begin to crumble, and their predictable doom begins to loom heavy. A few “key” guys die, but to really give a shit about any of them, you must have deemed them to be the hunkiest of the bunch earlier on, because you certainly can’t differentiate any of the meat via character development.
Eventually, the Spartans are beaten. Sure, there’s a last-ditch moment where Total Dum-Dums think they might win, but Leonidas pulls a Scott Norwood with his javelin and then gets turned into a Human Lite-Brite along with everybody else in an impossibly heavy hail of arrows that is ubiquitous in every modern film featuring arrows. Prior to his Jesus Christ Pose death, Leonidas does take a quick moment to make the traitorous Hunchback feel really guilty.
We do get a tacked-on, feel-good ending where the Greeks have unified and are led to victory by the redeemed Robert the Bruce, but it’s ultimately meaningless and the outcome is mercifully implied instead of blasted with ejaculatory force into our weary eyes.
300 was somewhat enjoyable upon first viewing. Over-the-top and shamelessly mindless, it was visually entertaining and did well in the all-important category of inspiring snarky comments from the crew. A second viewing on the laptop left me bored as fuck. 300 is just too paper-thin to be enjoyed on repeated viewing. Even the juxtaposition of modern-day right-wing politics gives this movie a little too much credit, considering that macho warmongering isn’t exactly a novel concept, plus the film clearly promoted fourth-trimester abortion at its onset.
At its core, 300 is a simple nerd fantasy, a little taste of heroism and savage times that pokes at the dim embers of nerd fortitude. It is safe to embrace the strong of a different era as well as to imagine your flabby self as being capable of similar feats even though you can’t catch a football, but when the fantasy ends, it’s time to slouch back into reality where the modern equivalents of your on-screen champions are probably your most hated persecutors.
It is also clearly a fantasy for another demographic, but if you don’t ask, I won’t tell. Teehee.
Check Out Another Review of movie 300 by MATT CALE.