But you'll never take our freeeedom!

[andrewducker]

Or "Never Give Up, Never Surrender", as the crew of the NSEA Protector might say.

300 is an amazingly made movie. If nothing else it's an exercise in style that stretches the boundaries of the form. It's also stunningly violent, unashamedly grotesque and determinedly mythic in its style.

What it doesn't do is give you someone to care about. The Spartans are violent bastards, the Persians are twisted bastards and frankly you end up cheering for the Spartans purely because they're the home team, not because you'd actually like to have them round for tea.

If you can get past having to actually _like_ characters, you can admire their determination and idealism instead. And it's well worth seeing - much like Sin City was, because you've never seen anything quite like it before, and people will be ripping it off for the next five years.

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Although I think Sin City definitely did much better in terms of giving you characters to empathize with, I was able to find something to like about Leonidas and his taleteller. Granted, that lack of empathy is the weakest part of the film, in my opinion.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Jesus, if ***Sin CIty*** gave us more characters to emopathise with then I think I can definitely skip this one!! is there any way in which this is not like watching a really well done computer game? that's what the trailers look like..

[andrewducker]

It's a war movie. The main characters are soldiers, born, bred and strictly trained. Should you wish to see a very stylised, gorgeously filmed ancient war movie then I recommend it.

The trailer should make it obvious that introspection and complex discussion are not the point of the movie...

(Not that there isn't character stuff, but it's not hugely deep, and largely revolves around people idolising honour, glory, freedom and comradeship)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I'll try and persuade Anne and Mike. Anne is a Greek scholar after all.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing we didn't see the same Sin City, as I found many of the characters to be easy to empathize with, particularly Marv.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Is Marv Bruce Willis? if so then yes, he's likeable, admirable, courageous. But he's not a real character - not even as much as Peter Parker or come to that, Daredevil :) - he's an archetype, tough bitten good guy-hero-by-the-numbers. No one in Sin City was anything like a real person or even what passes for the celluloid version of that (a good thing in some cases ;) and you can't empathise with an archetype.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, since when?