600 bare thighs
Starting off, I want to issue a warning to the readers out there who aren’t fans of scantily clad, bronzed, chiseled goliaths who seem to have leapt from the pages of Men’s Fitness Magazine. If you aren’t, much like this reviewer, you may not enjoy the true essence of the two-hour epic which is 300.
600 bare thighs aside, I wasn’t a huge fan of Zack Snyder’s interpretation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel. I place most of the blame not on Snyder, but on Robert Rodriguez. Their promotion play was established by showing off the “graphic novel” style of filmmaking, which is essentially comparing the comic book pages to the frames of the film, fast-cut, music video-style editing, heavy rock soundtrack, and shooting the majority of the film in front of a green screen. Now I’d hope the majority of you realize at this point that the style I just read off was identical to the style that Robert Rodriguez practically invented for 2005’s Sin City.
Now in playing devil’s advocate, I could say that the reasoning behind the similar styles lies with the fact that they are both done in Miller’s vision, and his artistic didn’t change much between the two graphic novels, and you could be asking at that point “Why should the film style change between the two films?” I’ll tell you why, dear readers. If this film was done with Rodriguez behind the helm once again, or even with his “Troublemaker Studios” at hand (which is where the majority of the green-screen activity was shot) it would have been far more acceptable.