One word sums up this movie: “juvenile”.
Disclosure: 300 is based on the comic book of the same name. When the comic came out, I bought the first issue, read it, thought “What a piece of crap”, and didn’t buy the second issue. My opinion of the comic has not changed since then, and the movie supports that feeling.
You know what would be cool? Lots of blood squirting everywhere. Like in that King Arthur movie, when the guy’s arms and legs come off.
You know what would be cool? Lots of symbolic, dramatic lighting, like everything is occurring at sunset or under a full moon.
You know what would be cool? A bottomless pit in the middle of the court of Sparta, with no railings or grating or cover, because, like, Spartans are so bad ass that they never slip, stumble, or fall.
You know what would be cool? If the dramatic scenes all had shit floating in the air to give it a dreamy quality. Snow, dust, pollen, whatever.
You know what would be cool? If all the Spartans went shirtless all the time and were like totally ripped. Dude, that would be gay, not cool! Oh, well don’t worry, they won’t ever touch each other, so it won’t really be gay. Just sorta.
You know what would be cool? If we added reverb and other modulation to the voices at their most dramatic moments. That would, like, totally help carry the symbolism through.
You know what would be cool? If we had a voiceover going through the whole movie, sometimes reiterating the action but usually just giving color commentary and saying poetic shit. And it would be way cool to — surprise! — make the voiceover be the story of the Spartans being told to others, to inspire them to fight crazy.
You know what would be cool? If the Spartans were so bad ass that even their allies thought they were crazy and would run away.
You know what would be cool? If there were all these dramatic, tension-filled conversations between the Spartans, full of pauses and deep brooding stares. Um, dude, you’ve gone into the gay zone again! Okay, we’ll have them break off the looks early, so no one could possibly think that there’s something gay going on.
You know what would be cool? If we did all the action scenes cutting in and out of slow-mo, so you could totally see all the sword cuts and tumbling bodies and splashing blood.
You know what would be cool? If the entire cast was men, just beating the snot out of each other. Dude, gay thing again! You need something with a woman, so we can get the chicks to let us see it. No problem, man: we’ll add a subplot with the queen, and she can have sex in it, too. She’ll be totally hot, and it will be rough, beating the snot out of each other sex. And if we have to trim the film to make it shorter, we can cut the subplot some, removing girl stuff and keeping all the bad ass fight scenes!
You know what would be cool? If this movie didn’t make me fear that the director’s upcoming Watchmen film will be more of the same.
