Madness? This is Sparta!

It all began with a text from my good friend and respected film teacher Art Vito Cruz, who suggested that the ode to Spartan manliness could hardly be called good cinema, but was oddly invigorating nonetheless. Intrigued, my wife, brother-in-law, and I trooped over to the Podium to catch 300.

Two hours later, I realized that Art was right. Watching 300, despite the many cringe inducing scenes that cater a bit too obviously to its predetermined fanbase of geek boys and gay men (an observation made in Jessica Zafra's blog), was oddly exhilarating.

At its worst, the movie had the hypnotic quality of David Caruso at his hammy, overacting best (which was lovingly compiled recently by stewmurray47 on YouTube as Endless Caruso One-Liners ). At its best, the movie is an invaluable aid for those who have some difficulty imagining what epic battle must have been like during ancient Greek times. In fact, in an otherwise scathing review, The New York Times movie scribe A.O. Scott notes that there are some "sequences that achieve a grim, brutal grandeur, notably an early engagement in which the Spartans, hunkered behind their shields, push back against a Persian line, forcing enemy soldiers off a cliff into the water", and I agree: in a movie filled with overblown graphic spectacle (which I guiltily enjoyed) no other scene rings truer than the sight of the Spartans literally pushing their foes off the face of the earth.

I suspect that it is the relentless tone of primordial, almost pre-rational, bravery that most viewers react to in the movie, and there's nothing wrong with being moved by that sort of savage satisfaction. Watch this ludicrously bombastic ode to war as reimagined by geeky fan boys the way it should be seen: as good old-fashioned popcorn fodder for the summer.

Picture of 300 comes courtesy of Worst Previews 300 Gallery.