300 Reviews

300 review come trickling into my RSS feeder. Guys I know from their blogs?  Thumbs up.

Garfield Ridge
And after last night, I can say that my lowered expectations were blown out of the water-- 300 is the real deal, a seriously kick-ass movie. It's bloody and violent and entertaining as all hell, with large chunks of red meat tossed at the audience.

Mike the Marine
Just got back from "300." Awesome. I would write a better review, but Ragnar apparently wrote it yesterday for me. Very thoughtful of him.

What did Ragnar think of it?
Went to see it yesterday. Of course, the action sequences were nothing short of awesome. It was just a kick-ass movie, as you can thoroughly gather from the previews. This movie had pretty much everything--hundreds of Spartans, millions of Persians, swords, blood, a giant wolf, gold, severed heads, hot chicks, killer elephants, more blood, explosions, bare boobs, a dude with saws for arms, naked lesbians, even more blood, lots of hand grenades and at least one pissed-off rhinoceros. The fact that the squishy ones don't like it speaks volumes. If not for the unfortunate shortage of zombies, chainsaws, shotguns and Bruce Campbell, "300" would probably be considered the most perfect action movie in the history of mankind. It may be anyway. It kicks that much ass.

Pans?  Squishy ones? Film critics.  Thumbs down.

"If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war." -- Dana Stevens, Slate (very first sentence!)

"Keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule - never compare anything to Hitler - it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a 300 screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again." -- Kyle Smith, NY Post

"It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white." -- A.O. Scott, NY Times

"At least in the short run, 300 is something to see, but unless you love violence as much as a Spartan, Quentin Tarantino or a video-game-playing teenage boy, you will not be endlessly fascinated." -- Kenneth Turan, LA Times

"It really is like a gay fetish movie. There are so many pecs and chests and rips and tears and nipples..." -- David Poland, Movie City News (before pausing to wipe his brow)

"...so militaristic and single-minded that it's like a CGI-heavy blockbuster version of Triumph of the Will. It's brutal, it's painful, it's mind-numbing and, most disturbingly, it's a rallying cry for the testosterone-heavy that posits 'no mercy' as the most noble sentiment in the world. The U.S. Army needs to pick this up as a recruiting film, stat." -- Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly

Interesting, and sadly predictable.  The pros seem to miss the point of the film. Or so I gather - I won't be seeing it for a few weeks.