Introduction
I am usually attracted to movies involving history and historic figures. So when I saw the posters of 300, I made a mental note to check out this movie.

The Plot
King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) is the king of Sparta and lives there with pride and spirit of Sparta. One fine day a messenger from the great Turkish king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) comes and asks Leonidas to accept Xerxes as his master and pledge his land to him. Leonidas refuses the offer and kills the messenger.

This makes Xerxes mad and he sends a huge army to confront Leonidas. Leonidas on the other hand is unable to convince the senate to send a full Spartan army to fight the Turkish. So he selects 300 of his best men to fight the Turkish in the mountain pass of Thermopylae.

For three days the 300 men outfight and outwit a Turkish army of well over 100,000 fighters. But, then owing to the defection of a shepherd, the Turkish find a passage by which they can outflank the 300 fighting Spartans and then go ahead to kill them all and win the battle of Thermopylae.

Critic's Viewpoint
The Battle of Thermopylae in the 480 BC was one of greatest last stand in the history of mankind. 300 Spartans, alongwith 700 thespians and slave soldiers managed to hold a huge turkish army for over 3 days. Their suicide mission was primarily to buy time for the rest of the Greece to unite their armies to fight against the Turkish. The movie though digresses from history at this point and shows infighting within Sparta itself led by the corrupt politician Theron (Dominic West).

The movie has been shot dramatically, in fact too dramatically for any element of truth to be there in the movie. Though the action sequences look very good, but the whole movie feels more like a fantasy fiction with Giants and huge Rhinocerous type of animals running amuck. Also the highly distorted faces of the Turkish and fanatical depiction of Xerxes and his troops really makes a mockery of history.

Another factor that disappointed me in this movie was the excessive use of sex that too when the plot hardly demanded it. So we have Oracle lying naked and the Lena Headley as Queen Gorgo goes naked and then there are horde of naked ladies in the Turkish camp.

Coming to the action scenes, I had expected a lot from the movie. I wanted to see some greek strategy being played and the way the Spartans fought for one another. Instead what we see is a Kill Bill version of warfare with blood and gore spitting all over the screen without any strategy or planning. The only time strategy was ever discussed was by King Leonidas with the Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan) that each Spartan protects the other from the left. Wow! that's a great strategy discussion :).

Of course, children are a strict no-no for this movie on accounts of both sex as well as violence.

Coming to performances, given the blood and gore and just mad fighting which was going on, there was really very little for performances. Most of the crew were decent without anyone really standing out with a good performance. Their physique was looking brilliant for the role that they were playing.

The sets were good and the war scenes were interesting to watch though without making much sense. So you could see three or four spartans taking down 100s and 100s of Turkish soldiers in open warfare.

Summary
If I just look at it from action point of view, then the movie was an average movie. But, I look at it as a movie made to depict the Battle of Thermopylae, I find the movie below average with all the additional components.

I would give this movie an overall 3 star rating.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age