The Daily Bloon

Review.

Title: 300
Genre (Movie): Manliness. It’s genre is Manliness.
Description: This movie is the summation of manhood.
Rating:

Science class teaches me that for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. So it is with movies. Take chick flicks, for example. Based upon how many chick flicks have been made over the course of history, one would think that the estrogen level of Hollywood would be greater than, say, the man-rogen of a boxing match. And that’s a pretty high level of man-roge, let me tell you.
Well, dear readers, 300 has managed to not only even the balance of Hollywood’s feminine persuasion, but also tips the scales in favor of the phallus. Hoo rah.

300 is a heavily stylized film about the legendary Battle of Thermopylae, where a dedicated band of 300 Spartans and around 1000 Thespians held back an advance of tens of thousands of Persian soldiers in order to buy the Athenians more time. The film is relatively accurate in its historicality until it decides to take some artistic license and exaggerate a little. It gets a lot of its style from Snyder’s previous work, Sin City, but changes in tone and shape don’t make it too obvious. Just the blood, really.

The main draw of the film is, of course, the battles. The battles are magnificently done, with enough crazy action going on to make it fast, but intense slow-down moments so that you can see everything these amazing warriors are doing. The fighting style is believable as opposed to Kung Fu-esque, which was impressive. The film tips its hat to the efficiency of the phalanx, the actual strategy used by the Spartans, but splinters off to allow for some more intense hand-to-hand segments to please the audience. And please it does.

As mentioned above, there’s some artistic license taken. The license to put an effing rhino in the film, for example. The license to have the Spartans fight trolls and demons and God-knows-what alongside the Persians. The license to kill wolf-beasts and give some people some really messed-up birth defects.
There’s license taken, alright. But as long as you take it in stride, it’s all part of the experience.

The R-rating is earned and then some, with liberal applications of blood, gore, and nudity. But it was to be expected of Snyder, so it’s not like it comes out of nowhere.
One thing about the nudity, though. I hate to be vulgar, but to those who have seen the movie, I need to get a consensus that what I saw wasn’t imagined. Is it just me, or were those nipples ridiculous? It looked like someone glued lego bricks to those women’s chests. They must have protruded full inches or something. Truly crazy.

I can sit here and describe this film all day long and you’ll never truly appreciate it’s majesty. Do you remember how beyond words Snakes on a Plane was? Know how pumped up that got you?
Multiply that times about 10. After seeing this film, I went home and did pushups because…I’m not exactly sure why. I felt I needed to? I felt I was not manly enough to see the film, and some extra pushups might redeem me? It was either that, or kicking some stranger into a dark pit while yelling, “THIS…IS…SPARTAAAA!”? (I hear you can get arrested for that). I don’t know. But I went home, I did pushups, I did crunches, I ran around my room and I punched pillows. This movie is now the official rite of passage for all men out there. If you haven’t seen it, you aren’t a man.
In fact, I have framed my movie ticket on my wall in the following manner, to show this new development in man.

And you thought that bar mitzvah would do it.

In short: truly amazing film for its journey into the very core of what it is to be a manly man. Women, you can probably sit this one out. I’m not saying you won’t enjoy it, but I’m saying that if you see it with your boyfriend, he may have to go out and punch some strangers on the way home. Not a good note on which to end a date.

–”What makes this woman think she has a right to talk here? This is a place for men.”
–“Because only Spartan women give birth to real men.”