"Go tell the Spartans, passer-by: that here, by Spartan law, we lie."
Hello everyone!
So as I wrote earlier this week somewhere, I decided to switch my blog posts around a little because I saw something on the television schedule that made me grin.
Tuesday or Wednesday night, one of our channels aired 300, and I was stoked.
There is virtually nothing better to get you right out of the holiday cheer and back into the real world than some old-fashioned ass-kicking, which 300 delivers in spades and then some. Sure it's gory - but for all that it makes up with witty lines and ridiculous hilarity throughout.
Also, watching half-naked guys running around all muscled is a plus.
Since I'd already reviewed the sequel, I figured I might as well wait until this Saturday to post a review for the original movie from 2006 which pretty much made everything else Greek look fairly nansy in comparison.
I mean, come on - the Spartans literally lived for war, after all.
The link to 300: Rise of an Empire can be found at the bottom of this page, as is usual when there are similar posts to be found to the one you're reading.
As for this review, let's start off by saying that DANG, the Spartans were ripped.
I mean, seriously; I've heard people say on occasion when watching Pride and Prejudice that Matthew MacFadyen looked like a really, really manly man walking through the mist, saying he had pretty big thighs.
Me, I spent most of the 300 movie eyeing all these guys and thinking Matt had nothing on them. Nothing.
But anyway.
The movie opens with a narrator describing a practice the Spartans used to employ, which is when a boy was born in Sparta, he was inspected, and if any fault was found, he was discarded like trash. Luckily for this baby, that didn't happen, so at age seven he was taken from his mother and placed in the program all young boys in Sparta went through - which is to say kiddie boot camp that would make modern-day special forces ones look like daycare.
Then the kid was sent out into the wild with nothing to see if he survived.
Not only did he survive, but he came back with a wolf pelt, and grew up to become king of the Spartans, Leonidas.
At this point our narrator, Faramir Dilios, is finally shown, and it looks like he's telling this story around a campfire.
But we're a little busy with the arrival of Persian envoys, carrying the heads of dead kings like some sort of entry fee to present to Leonidas. At this point in time, the king has his own son as well, and a queen, Gorgo, who runs the show.
So of course he's not pleased with the Persian, killing the messengers for insulting Sparta, his queen, and himself, not necessarily in that order.
Unfortunately, this means war, as Leonidas knows well, which is why he climbs up a mountain to confer with sickly old men, priests of the ancient world, to see what the gods have to say about the venture since there's a big festival for Greece just around the corner. You'd think that anyone using their head would realize that there won't BE a festival if they don't go fight the Persians, but nope.
The old geezers had already been bribed by the Persians to make sure Leonidas won't march his army out.
After conferring with his queen, however (and ain't THAT another word for calling it), Leonidas decides to spit on tradition, and gathers 300 of his best men to him, all volunteers to march with their King, explaining that it's not the army but his personal guard, so the senate can't do squat.
Off the Spartans go, happily marching to build a wall (or rebuild it, really) to block the only road off from the Persians so they can redirect them to the one place where numbers won't be in their favour. The passage through the Hot Gates is narrow and can be defended by a small force of men, which is exactly what Leonidas is counting on.
Of course, the Persians are arrogant. Who are these puny Greeks trying to stop the might of the god-king, Xerxes?
"Greeks!" says one general, "Lay down your weapons!"
Famous last words, as he's speared right off his horse in the next moment.
"Persians!" retaliates Leonidas, "COME AND GET THEM!"
Then starts the battle that made its way into history as Leonidas and his men bravely defend the passage from everything Xerxes sends at them. The kings also get to meet and talk to one another, during which time Leonidas delivers a few more timely quips (Haven't you been paying attention, we've been sharing our culture with you all morning, so I got a cramp in my leg and can't kneel to you, and oh also you don't know our women, they'd whoop your ass right back to Persia) but refuses to submit.
This just pisses Xerxes off and he sends wave after wave at the 300, each repelled.
It might have even gone in Leonidas' favour if not for a little detail: a man.
See, Ephy here has always wanted nothing more than to fight with the Spartans, being a Spartan himself, but as he was born a hunchback, he would have been killed after birth if his parents hadn't fled. Leonidas kindly, but firmly, explains why he can't fight with the 300, but that he CAN aid them in any other small way if he wants to be useful.
This just makes Ephy run with tail tucked over to Xerxes, where freaks like him are almost revered, and he tells the god-king about a goat path that leads around the Hot Gates, which would bring the Persians behind Leonidas' back.
It was the one thing Leonidas feared - and treachery found him even so.
And still, the king refuses to kneel, and his soldiers refuse to back down. They manage to wound Xerxes, showing that he's no god, since he bleeds, but afterwards they're all slaughtered where they stand.
Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Gorgo has been working tirelessly to get more support to her husband, even going so far as to allowing Theron, a weasely counsellor, to rape her, which he then turns into her trying to seduce him, but Gorgo shows him that, truly, only Spartan women give birth to real men and have the right to more liberty than anywhere else in Greece, when she stabs him and reveals he, too, is in the Persian's employ.
Her actions are all too late, however, as Dilios, having been dismissed by Leonidas earlier, arrives back to Sparta bearing the wolf-tooth necklace Gorgo gave her husband before he marched.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
What next, then?
As further explained in 300: Rise of an Empire, the death of Leonidas and his men was among the many sparks that united Greece against the Persians, showing that even the smallest force can do much damage. Dilios concludes his narrative, and now we pan out to see he's telling the story to an army of 10,000 Spartans leading 30,000 free Greeks, all of them thirsting for Persian blood.
Because if 300 Spartans could kill so many Persians - how many will 10,000 slaughter?
Ready, set - CHARGE!
I'd forgotten just how witty and funny this movie is in comparison to the sequel - whereas Themistocles is a dour sort of character who occasionally tries to get some giggles going, Leonidas does it with effortless charm and swagger. Gerard Butler portrayed the slightly-mad Spartan King to perfection, especially with some of his one-liners.
This movie was also the feature film debut of Michael Fassbender, something I'd also forgotten, but he had his moment to shine when he quipped that, if the Persians will deign to cover the sky in arrrows, the Spartans will simply fight in the shade.
Lena Headey slays her role as Gorgo, and it was interesting to go back and see the queen before she came into her role of military commander in the sequel, how it subtly changed her.
And of course, David Wenham knows how to tell a good story.
If you have yet to see this movie, I highly, highly recommend it. Just ignore the buckets of fake blood dripping about - the story itself is more than worth watching.
xx
*images and video not mine
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