300 Review

Let me start my roasting with what I liked about 300.  There was nothing I liked about 300 so I can go onto the next paragraph now.

Now, I am going to take this first (actual) body paragraph to list all of the awful historical (and cultural) inaccuracies that way I won't have to mention them for the rest of the view (because their utter ignorance angers me when I think about it).  Let me clear up some things, 1.Persians weren't black (sure they may have conquered some black people, but Xerxes would not be black he'd be an Iranian skin color.  In this he looks North African), 2.Persians did NOT have slaves, slavery was OUTLAWED in Persia at the time (and let me point out that slavery was very common in Sparta and the rest of Greece.  All that freedom and voting and such that you hear from Greece was ONLY from the Athenians and ONLY for their upper class), 3.While Zoroastrianism was their official religion (Which was pretty much a monotheistic religion that would have NOT been about worshipping a king Xerxes) they were fairly religiously tolerant depending on the dynasty.  Either way they would have NOT treated Xerxes like some one and only god.  4.Persia was a much better place to live than Sparta (or anywhere in Greece), it was stable, it wasn't a dictatorship (Sparta was), and they didn't kill their children for not being strong enough to be a warrior and have other brutal living styles.  I could go on, but I hope you are starting to get the picture that the way in which they portrayed Persia as some evil empire bent on making the entire world their slaves and demolishing freedom (which btw, Spartans had NONE, Athenians had some but it was only for the upper, land-owning Athenian class).  Also the way they portrayed all the Persians as disgusting, evil creatures was not only outright racist to anyone of any Persian/Iranian descent but incredibly false.  I know I'm supposed to shut up and ignore these things but on and on through the movie it continues to be historically inaccurate in it's portrayal of everything.  I am not asking the movie to be a documentary on history but at least try to get history right!  The ONLY thing that 300 got right on a historical or cultural level was that the Greeks won the war, and that was only implied at the very end.  (But then again Athens and their navy was the essential reason Greece even won the war)

Next, the special effects and CGI was an awful piece of dog turd.  It was ugly with very few scenes that worked stylistically.  The stupid wolf that Leonidas fought was some of the worst CGI I have seen since movies like Battlefield Earth and all the effects were like a 7o year old trying out photoshop for the first time (especially those awful photo printed abs, and on that NO THE SPARTAN DID NOT FIGHT IN A SACKCLOTH SPEEDO, THEY HAD ARMOR).  I hated the style, but then again I hate Snyder's style completely, I hated Snyder's style in Sucker Punch and Man of Steal Your Money, he tries to make it all bleak and serious and the majority of the scenes just looks like some corny motivational a 13 year old girl took and put on instagram.  And while i'm on the effects, the action wasn't even that good, it was overbloated and boring and you honestly didn't care that the Spartans died because they had no real character development (Honestly, showing an ugly CGI wolf and one of the ugliest sex scenes that's ever been in a movie does not make me care about a character or his slut wife).  

I would use this paragraph to talk more indepth about how awful the character development is, except for the fact that THERE IS NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AT ALL.  Every single character is some stereotypical cardboard cut out of, "Courageous, manly soldier who fights for freedom and his wife and children, and of course 'MURICA! (In this case Sparta which the typical hormonal american 13 year old is supposed to replace with America).", take away the Greek language (that was done poorly by the way, like everything in this movie) and they're all worse than characters you'd see in a Michael Bay or Rolan Emmerich movie.  They are cliche riddled and what's worse is they even do the cliche's poorly.

Now for the character's and performances themselves...Gerard Butler was awful as Leonidas and screamed the majority of the lines thinking that shouting them really loudly was (or in the quieter moments saying the greek lines exactly how you'd expect a bad high school actor to say them when rehearsing a greek play for their theatre), 'Acting'.  All the character's were bland, none of the 'emotional' or 'shocking' parts did anything but make me facepalm at how bad it was, and the writing did an atrocious job at trying to remake this ancient Greek legend (which I know was already tarnished by the awful comics, BUT IT'S MOVIE'S FAULT FOR PICKING AWFUL COMIC BOOK SOURCE MATERIAL).

Overall, I hate everything in this movie with a burning passion.  I hate all of it's cheesy, bland cliche'ness meant to give 12 year olds a patriotic freedom  boner from all the blood, gore, and tits and I hate Snyder for making this awful movie and all his other awful movies.  I found a review on the actual 300 RT page that summarizes my feelings for this movie in 2 words, "Ass-crack Ugly."

0/10 Sticks of Bamboo