enjoy your dinner... IN HELL!

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has been raving about Zack Snyder’s 300, and I swear, I can only tolerate so many people randomly shouting some shit about dining in hell until the point that I just have to see for myself what the big deal is. I’d seen the trailer beforehand, and said to myself, “holy shit, that’s a fucking huge rhinoceros.” That meant, of course, that I had to watch it last Friday with some English blockmates after our class play at 11:15 in the goddamn evening.

On to the film. I think in order to truly appreciate 300, one must have clearly defined expectations of a movie. One might look for, say, a meaningful plot, or well-developed characters, or perhaps some insight on the human condition. Whatever. In my case, as it was very late at night and I was barely awake, I expected satisfaction from no more than:

1. A bunch of people impaling each other

2. Boobies

That’s all. In that regard, 300 is definitely fun. Stupid, but fun. In any case, here are a few points of interest from the movie:

1. Leonidas simply cannot be swayed! Killing a foreign emissary, in blatant disregard of the finer points of diplomacy, was all manly and everything, but where the blazes did that bottomless pit come from, and how the hell did the messenger get cornered in it? One minute they were happily debating the awesomeness of god-king Xerxes, and next thing you know they were standing next to this huge-ass hole in the ground.

2. Not only were the ephors (a bunch of elders who lived in the mountains who kept a naked spasmodic oracle which kings consulted when they wanted to go to war, but whose advice they ignored anyway) inhumanly ugly, they all looked exactly alike! How did that happen?

3. Apparently the Spartans were so masculine, they didn’t believe in armor. 300 men in this film go half-naked against an army of fucking millions, in whose ranks, I might add, include giant stampeding wild animals and ogres who had evolved blades for arms (I’m not kidding). Very impressive, Spartans, until someone gets speared right in the abs.

4. Again with the push move. A wave of Persians get cornered and pushed off a cliff, although I can’t imagine how they got there, since they were the ones charging and I don’t suppose they attacked the defensive Spartans from below that cliff. Oh well.

5. Holy shit, there are ninjas in this movie!

6. As there are Oliphaunts.

7. Faramir too.

8. Ephialtes? GOLLUM!

9. Xerxes was fucking hilarious! I’m sorry.

10. One of the most gripping scenes in the movie, in my opinion, was when one of the Spartans finds his son (also a soldier) decapitated after another Persian attack. It was moving, while fucking hilarious at the same time. I’m sorry. Am I the only one who sees something inherently funny in a man in a leather speedo and cape crying over a headless corpse over a computer-generated background? Meh.

11. Xerxes looked thoroughly shocked after Leonidas made him bleed and realize his mortality. That's, of course, notwithstanding the fact that Xerxes had about a hundred piercings in his face alone. Don’t tell me he never bled once.

12. Half of the movie is in slow motion, which I admit makes having body parts chopped off pretty stylistic, but I sigh after realizing the film’s length could have been significantly reduced, and that extra hour used on some much-needed character development. Seriously, all Leonidas ever does in this movie is yell some vague shit (dine in hell? WTF is that?) before stabbing someone.