300

Okay, I have not been as excited as I was to see this movie for a long time. The trailers of 300 were just mind-blowingly awesome. Also, the TIME article and the hype around its “beauty” made me very inclined to watching it. So I did. It is pretty darn good.

Romit accompanied me for this one, and he was habitually three minutes late. Just before the movie began, we saw a very inspiring Coca Cola advert, and wondered whether we could ever create anything like it. We also found the trailer for “The Number 23” highly intriguing and noted that Ali just to watch that movie for all it's devil-ness.

Finally the movie began, with our hopes as high as Mount Everest. The introduction of the movie was brilliant, but then it swept into this half-dull phase, where it became semi-Bollywood-ish. There was an over-use of “stirring music”, and too much drama for my liking. But that phase passed very quickly. The movie beautifully switched into brilliant gear. With hair-tearing action scenes and the gut-wrenching voice of King Leonidas, time flew by, and we were stuck onto every inch of muscle-movement. Beyond the action, the mental build of a Spartan fascinated me. Their ability to laugh at death and embrace it as the highest token of honour is a little extreme, but the sheer devotion, unity and courage that the Spartans depict is inspiring in its own little way. Their faith in their King and the principled nature of their leader earn the audiences love almost instantaneously.

It has a decent story line - the fearless 300 warriors of Sparta against thousands of soldiers of the Persian empire in the great battle of Thermopylae. The 300 warriors are on the brink of pulling off a historic victory, until they get betrayed and meet heir downfall. But their sacrifice inspires the rest of Greece to stow away the Persians. Yeah I did put it all together in 4 lines, but you would be going to see the movie is for it's visual effects, its effective story-telling, and it's brilliant directing, and not for some complex story line.

The movie, however, lacks realism, but then it is not meant to be a “Saving Private Ryan” either. As TIME rightly put it, 300 is beautiful and is meant to be so. It has beautiful virtual sets, with excellent costumes and hair-raising sound effects. The amount of post-production work put into this film is laudable and the whole concept of it being shot completely in front of a green screen makes it a technological milestone in film-making. In addition to that, the photography and the direction of some of the shots is beyond brilliant. The script is also decent, and the acting is above average. Gerard Butler, who acts as “King Leonidas”, gives a powerful performance, but nobody else is noteworthy.

If you have seen the movie, you will call me an old fart for framing the movie “beautiful”, because its one of the most gruesome movies ever to hit the screens. It’s 18+ and rightly so, because well it’s like a “pornaction” film due to the explicit blood-spilling. There are more than enough head-cutting-offs and enough blood to fill a river. In one scene, an ‘Immortal’ (one of the enemy soldiers) cuts of the Spartan army’s Captain’s son’s head, the head spins into the air, and its oesophagus and trachea are visible from underneath, as it lands onto the ground. The head-less body stays put, and then suddenly falls. With blood oozing out, the body and its head are seen together, lying motionless on the ground. Fine, this movie may not compete with Hannibal and the other gruesome movies on the "disgusting" scale, but it has its fair share of eye-poking, disgusting creatures, blood and death. There are times where you will just want to look away or clutch your seat with sheer disgust. Romit is currently being haunted by all the head-cutting action. He can’t seem to get those images out of his head. So yeah it’s not a beautiful film in totality, but is the epitome of beautiful film-making.

Overall, this movie is a must-watch-in-theatre types, though the extra-sensitive and the blood-phobic people will not enjoy it. And please, don’t take your girlfriend for this one.

P.S. I would give it a 7 on 10 because I don’t think it comes close to Gladiator. Why Gladiator? Because it’s one of my all-time favourites and is partially comparable to 300.