Computer-buffed "300" marches gloriously into war-porn

Comic geeks who go Wolverine-berserk when their favorites get mutated in the translation to film will worship "300." If that's all they care about.

It's the most slavishly faithful comic adaptation yet. Every iconic image (and to my recollection, word) from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel is brought to copper-burnished, computer-generated, magnificent life. I'm not even sure the screenwriters -- director Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon -- deserve a credit except by technicality.

A graduate of our public schools may wonder if the Battle of Thermopylae was a fight over a fancy hiking jacket that repels water really well. In fact, it was a small band of Spartans trying to repel Persian invaders who vastly outnumbered them, with the help of a narrow passage called "The Hot Gates" that hindered the attackers. The movie portrays it as one of history's great last stands -- like "The Alamo" and "Zulu," except with hyper-macho, near-naked muscular guys who seem like something from one of John Milius' childhood fantasies.

After being told that the arrows from a hundred nations will blot out the sun, a Spartan retorts, "Then we will fight in the shade."

As their ferocious leader, King Leonidas, beefed-up Gerard Butler ("The Phantom of the Opera") makes no attempt to conceal his Scottish accent, which sounds like a Sean Connery imitation. A flashback shows that Leonidas was raised in the brutal Spartan way (i.e., child abuse) and became king after slaughtering a gigantic wolf.

When the hot, naked oracle of a group of deformed priests tells Leonidas not to go to war, he instead goes for a "walk" with 300 armed "bodyguards," and sets off to fight anyway. He defies and mocks Persian king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), who fancies himself a god and has a face sprouting with bling. And then it's war -- or rather, war-porn. One long, stylized, blood-gouting, limb-hacking battle scene after another. In the most exhilarating bit, two Spartans fight back-to-back against numerous attackers, as the action alternates between slow-motion and fast to emphasize every decapi-tastic detail.

Movie review


"300," with Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, Rodrigo Santoro, Vincent Regan. Directed by Zack Snyder, from a screenplay by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael B.

Gordon, based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. 117 minutes. Rated R for graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity. Several theaters.

Filmmakers have added a subplot about Leonidas' wife (Lena Headey) trying to get the council to send more troops and having to go through scheming politician Theron (Dominic West of HBO's "The Wire") to do it. It mainly seems like padding to stretch Miller's story into feature length.

Despite the fantastic visuals, action and sometimes rousing story, the needle flickers between grandiose and laughable -- in part because the film takes itself sooo relentlessly, slow-motion, music-swellin', see-you-in-hell seriously. Some of Miller's words that read well on the comic page seem juvenile on the screen; likewise, the characters remain two-dimensional.

And don't mistake this for an Ann Coulter thing, but I'll say that after spending two hours watching dudes in Speedos with six-pack abs and red capes piercing everything they can with long spears, I needed to watch a Chippendale video just to wind down.

I really wanted to stab someone after the movie -- and yet I felt so confused by it.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com