Prediction: 300: Rise of an Empire
Shiri’s Prediction: First, let me say I’m glad to see Xerses’ giant, golden underpants getting work. Next, let me say: WHY, HADES, WHY? I liked 300. I’ve seen it several times, both with and without RiffTrax (“Why’s the pizza guy still here? He likes to party”). And when I say I liked it I don’t just mean I liked watching Gerard Butler run around in his own magical diaper stabbing shit for a couple hours. Though I definitely did like that. 300 (graphic novel and move) has a decent story based on history but not, by any means, bound by it (definitely, definitely not bound by it), the history of a massive, impossible battle in which a politically semantic delegation of the little guy takes on the man and, despite being massacred, are pretty well known by those who have studied even a little bit of ancient civ. The movie (and here we distinguish movie from film once again) isn’t horribly acted. For the most part. Though I’m not sure who trained the Persian ninjas. It was visually stunning, the colors incredible and vivid, and the stop-motion-slow-motion-fast-motion mojo working in a serious way. Unfortunately for Zack Snyder, he had to go and beat the dead Spartan over and over and over again and now his style is a thing and his thing doesn’t capture my interest the way it used to due to market saturation and whatever the hell Sucker Punch was. Also, shoving a woman on a boat and putting animal vertebrae on her armor doesn’t make this a feminist film and it doesn’t make her a badass. I’m a go maybe, maybe DVD on this one, though if someone offered me free tickets, I wouldn’t turn them down. If there’s a RiffTrax, well, that changes things more than a little. Sorry, Zack. Maybe if there had been a bigger role for golden underpants…
Luke’s Prediction: Uh…well, from that preview we can tell…and then, uh, Ozzy is finally going to have an acting career? Go Ozzy!!!
Nope, I really don’t have much to say here, 300 was OK popcorn-movie fare. The comic was better, and after the last few Zach Snyder snoozers; Watchmen, the owl movie, and Sucker Punch; it sadly looks like the Dawn of the Dead remake was an aberration rather than the rule for his movies.
Bah, it is a sad day when massive battles and swords and such elicit a ‘bah’ from me, but this just left me bored.
One should always take a large dose of salt when it comes to Hollywood History. Keeping this in mind, the movie is still worth the watch. It nudges the bar 300 set, not breaking it, but coming close to being on par with the first.