Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Warner Brothers 300 (Blu-ray)
The epic graphic novel by Frank Miller ("Sin City") assaults the screen with the blood, thunder and awe of its ferocious visual stylefaithfully recreated in an intense blend of live-action and CGI animation. Retelling the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, it depicts the titanic clash in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his massive Persian army. Experience history at swordpoint. And moviemaking with a cutting edge.

Amazon.com:
Like Sin City before it, 300 brings Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel vividly to life. Gerard Butler (Beowulf and Grendel, The Phantom of the Opera) radiates pure power and charisma as Leonidas, the Grecian king who leads 300 of his fellow Spartans (including David Wenham of The Lord of the Rings, Michael Fassbender, and Andrew Pleavin) into a battle against the overwhelming force of Persian invaders. Their only hope is to neutralize the numerical advantage by confronting the Persians, led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), at the narrow strait of Thermopylae. More engaging than Troy, the tepid and somewhat similar epic of ancient Greece, 300 is also comparable to Sin City in that the actors were shot on green screen, then added to digitally created backgrounds. The effort pays off in a strikingly stylized look and huge, sweeping battle scenes. However, it's not as to-the-letter faithful to Miller's source material as Sin City was. The plot is the same, and many of the book's images are represented just about perfectly. But some extra material has been added, including new villains (who would be considered "bosses" if this were a video game, and it often feels like one) and a political subplot involving new characters and a significantly expanded role for the Queen of Sparta (Lena Headey). While this subplot by director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) and his fellow co-writers does break up the violence, most fans would probably dismiss it as filler if it didn't involve the sexy Headey. Other viewers, of course, will be turned off by the waves of spurting blood, flying body parts, and surging testosterone. (The six-pack abs are also relentless, and the movie has more and less nudity--more female, less male--than the graphic novel.) Still, as a representation of Miller's work and as an ancient-themed action flick with a modern edge, 300 delivers. --David Horiuchi

Rating : - 300 (Widescreen Edition)
When I saw the trailers for this movie I knew there was going to be an immediate problem. After watching the movie my suspicions were confirmed. The battle of Thermopylae, as it's presented here, is mythologized. This battle was a real battle & unfortunately what's presented here isn't real. I get the impression that Zack Snyder, the director, had watched Lord of the Rings about 12 times too many. Lord of the Rings was fantasy, filming it as such was the right thing to do. The Battle of Thermopylae was areal event & deserves to be portrayed that way. The other big problem with the movie stems from too much computer graphics. All the brown & yellow colors kept me wanted to add more brightness on my tv.

I know this is an action movie & that's what it focuses on but in no way did I feel that it was believable. The portrayal of Leonidas by Gerard Butler has to be one of the worst things ever done in a movie. But I'll give him some credit; he had very little to work with script-wise. In fact, there isn't any character development at all in this movie. Gerard seemed to base his character on Mel Gibson's Braveheart. There seemed to be a couple of times when he almost slipped into a Scottish brogue.

There are some factual things in this movie but they are minimized except for, perhaps, the training of Leonidas as a youth. But almost everything I saw here reminded of a bad version of Lord of the Rings. The cast off Spartan hunchback was Gollum, The chained guy was a cave troll, the Immortals were orcs, the elephants, the rhinoceros (please!!!) was like the huge hyena creatures the orcs rode. And what's with the androgynous portrayal of Xerxes?

I could go on & on about what's wrong with this movie. The other thing about a movie is its entertainment value. Well, I did find 300 somewhat entertaining but not in the way the director intended. This is some lame stuff. This battle was a real event & should've been portrayed as such. I'm just glad I borrowed this dvd, I wouldn't buy it or rent it.