[Movie] 300

I thought this movie was absolute garbage. Which sucks, because I was really really looking forward to it

What this movie does right:

- Awesome visuals, though on some shots you can see some digital grain. Not a huge deal, but just something I nitpicked.
- Very good fights aside from how many fucking motion effects were applied. Will elaborate on that later... The fights were real good though.

What it did wrong-

- Everything else

Narrative is extremely trite and cliche. You can see pretty much everything that happens come from a mile away. Even cliches that don't belong end up happening. It was laughable and felt very un-Frank Miller. Some of the dialogue was good, but most of it didn't feel like it fit or belonged.

The visuals were fantastic, but ended up being marred by the EXTREME OVERABUNDANCE of slow and fast-motion. The movie would have been 45 minutes long if they had taken out all the slow motion. It was excessive, unmotivated, and made everything that happened seem of little importance.

The CG blood didn't bother me for the most part, but there were some CG shots that were so stupid. At one point, a Spartain is about to be hit with a whip, and the whip GOES RIGHT PAST THE CAMERA IN SLOW MOTION AND YOU SEE EVERY SINGLE STRAND OF FABRIC!!! Stupid.

Ugh... It was such a disappointment. Don't see it if you like originality in movies.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by NES Oldskooler

There's a reason why you can see everything coming from a mile away. It's based on a comic book that's almost a decade old, which is loosely based on events that happened 2500 years ago. What the hell did you think was going to happen?

I thought it would be a bit more original considering who penned the original work. I'm talking less about the plot and more about the tired Hollywood shit you always see in these kinds of movies. Examples-

1. Leonidis is on a balcony looking out into the night because his mind is torn. He goes to talk to his naked wife about it. After which, they have sex (with a few completely unneeded shots of him duking her from behind). Come on, that EXACT SCENE has been done NUMEROUS TIMES ALREADY (without the doggystyle fucking too).

2. The emphasis on the captain's son. Well, lookit that, he died. Real shocker!

3. The queen giving Leonidis her necklace for good luck!

I could go on forever. Everything I saw in this movie has been done already, and done better. All the emotional shit it tried to force into the film was just that - forced. It was so bad to the point that it completely took me out of the film. It just tried too hard to be something it wasn't. I'll bet it's conveyed better in Frank Miller's comic, but in this slow-motion 2-hour music video, it just came off as a joke.

Quote:

Take a look at the comic. You'll find a lot of the slo-mo shots emphasized poses or actions that were found in panels of the comic. It's part of the stylized feel of the movie.

That's all well and good, but this is still a film. That sort of shit may work in MODERATION, but only that. This is a 2-hour narrative-driven film, not a music video. The slow-mo was obscenely excessive for a film like this.

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm not saying ONLY THOSE THREE THINGS are what stopped me from enjoying the movie. I'm saying that those are just some examples of the countless cliches found in this movie.

Yes, I've heard the whole "there is no more originality in movies" argument dozens of times by dozens of people who like shitty movies like 300. The question I ask is, are the cliches handles well enough to where they don't take you out of the movie? In 300, they aren't and they completely take me out of the experience because I'm sitting there laughing at it's attempts to be some emotional rollercoaster, which it clearly isn't.

As I said, I wasn't completely displeased. The fighting was fantastic when slow motion wasn't gratuitously used. It was nice to actually SEE the fighting as opposed to the usual cut-aways and other tricks that directors do to avoid showing full-blown violence.

However, a bunch of buff guys slicing the shit out of a bunch of Persian douchebags is not enough for a movie. Many reviewers said this movie would be better as a game, and I agree. it doesn't carry the emotional weight a movie should.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Seris

It's a war movie. It's not supposed to make you weep and cry and blubber like a pussybitch.

Tell that to the people who get emotional when they watch Saving Private Ryan, Letters from Iwo Jima, and the countless other war movies that carry emotional depth.

Quote:

Also,

Spoiler:

if you weren't the slightest bit heart-broken when the generals son gets decapitated right in front of him, you are a souless asshole.

He might not have died in the most traditional tragic manner, but it was still something that would make the heart cringe.

Here's why I am apparently a soulless asshole:

Spoiler:

1. The death of his son was inevitable from the moment he was introduced. Therefore, I simply sat in the theater waiting for it to happen, and when it DID happen, it didn't feel like anything I hadn't seen before. Countless films have tried the "captain's son gets killed" trick to try and wring some emotion from audience memberrs. It worked on me before, but not this time.

2. The kill itself was glorified to the point where it wasn't a stand-out death. Maybe the fact that he was decapitated in such a grissly way, but considering the rest of the movie is in slow motion, the kill did nothing that the other kills didn't do.

3. Combine those two and all you're left with is a tired cliche that is simply more violent than the ones that preceeded it. It carried no emotional weight for me because I saw it coming.

I think that because I'm a film major, my bullshit-meter has become far too sensitive. Regardless, I don't see why I simply can't like the movie without you people calling me a soulless asshole and asking "wtf is wrong with me."

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by IdentikitOfEyes

I will admit to it being slow and stretched in parts of the movie, but over all, it was great.

That's your opinion and I'm fine with it. Don't knock mine because you feel it's inferior to yours just because I have more knowledge about the medium. Grow up.

Quote:

Sure it was gritty, but trying to capture the look of the novel and the feel of that era, gritty is good. The way the showed Xerxes as a "king of kings, god of gods" was more than amazing. A 10 foot tall black man with a digital voice over cover in and surrounded by gold, he truly looked like a god, a perfect way to resemble Frank Miller's idea.

Again, your opinion. Which is fine, just stop preaching it to me like it's fact. Personally, I thought Xerces looked great, but I don't think a tall, gold-covered Prince lookalike like him would have been able to lead any armies, except for maybe an army of Persian cock into his tight ass.

I also thought the voice was so poorly handled at times that, like the clichés, it took me out of the movie. But that's just me.

Quote:

words

Yeah, I thought the fighting was good too. Where did I say it wasn't? It's the slow motion that bothered me.

Quote:

To say it sucks because of the way it was shot, or the actors, or some actual factor is more appropriate than because it was gritty, or cliche

This is where your obvious case of down syndrome comes into play. Where in my posts did I say I didn't like it because it was "gritty?" I didn't say that anywhere. If anything, that was a positive aspect of the film.

The fact that you feel that "the way it was shot, or the actors" are actual factors as to why a movie sucks really shows just how much you don't know about movies. That's fine though. Not all people know about films like me and other majors do. You can go ahead and go see movies like 300 and enjoy them. You like your shitty movies, and I'll like my shitty movies. Different strokes, man.

Quote:

(name a movie with out a single cliche in it, shouldn't be hard for a film major {not directed to you Servilonus} because you would know that in "war" movies leaders don't make speeches because their wifes are at home waiting for them to save everyone.

More bullshit. If you ask me, it's not how many clichés there are in a movie, it's how they're handled. It's how they're different from all the other clichés. Yes, I know mr. wise film viewer, I know there aren't a TON of non-clichéd movies out there, but the thing that's important to ME is, how does a movie make the clichés feel different and unique, to where it DOESN'T take you out of the movie and ruin it for people like me and the 8 people I saw it with?

If you ask me, 300 handled its clichés extremely poorly. They detracted from the awesome fighting scenes and overall tried to force emotion down our throat instead of letting it build for us naturally, like most good movies do.

Quote:

that is the problem with film students/film majors. They cant see past the small cliches to notice the huge story in front of them.

Oh boo fucking hoo. Did a film major kill your brother or something? Grow the fuck up you cuntrag. I have my opinions and you have yours.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by IdentikitOfEyes

Okay, what I gathered is this - You said that 300 is a combination of mediums, and that it is a faithful translation of the comic, because Frank Miller said so. Here are the problems with that statement-

A film is a film. The end. No matter what it is based off of, be it a comic, a novel, real events, whatever, in the end it is still just a film. You don't need to be a film major to figure that out. Of course Frank Miller is happy with it - It's a near-flawless rendition of HIS comic. This is problematic because if somebody made a near-flawless rendition of my life, I too would be happy with it. Does that make it a good film? NO.

300 is a film, and only a film. Therefore, it should follow the guidelines of what make a good film good. It shouldn't have limited itself strictly to the source material, because quite frankly, stuff that works well in other mediums may not work as well in a film. Look at The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if you want a stunning example of how NOT to translate a book to film. What worked in the book did not work in the film at all.

300 may very well be faithful to the source material, but you could write a book on a piece of dog shit and make a film that is faithful to it. You'll still be left with dog shit in the end.

Can we end this nonsense? Can we just both agree that I know more about how films work than you do? It may make me sound like a douche to you, but when you say you wish you could have seen more violence in Saving Private Ryan because it doesn't have slow motion like 300 makes you sound like the meathead jock that 300 was clearly aimed at.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Vestin

Do you know how retarded it sounds trying to compare 300 to a Steven Spielberg movie?

No I don't, feel free to ask IdentikitofEyes though. Here, I'll even link you to his post.

Quote:

Haha, I like how sprouticus bases his opinion on a movie and trys to use his "knowledge of how a film works," to validate it.

Douchebags like this are what's taking the fun out of movies.

You people are overreacting to the fact that I don't like this movie that you all did. Grow up, people have different opinions. You think my opinion is jaded because I know more about film? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? I'm not trying to validate anything. I'm trying to make my point clear to retards like you who think my feelings towards the film are baseless, and that I'm saying all this simply to "take the fun out of films." Fuck off. If I'm truly ruining your fun, then, well, I don't think there's much hope left for you. Why can't you assholes just accept the fact that some people see things differently than you? You people are such fucking cowards when it comes to opinions that don't match yours.

I'm done with this thread. It's been de-railed enough thanks to you cunts. I don't like the movie, and you do. I'm fine with it, but for whatever reson, you aren't. End of discussion. Stuck-up twats like you remove all the fun of posting here. Remind me never to disagree with the majority again

FELIPE NO