When the Homily is about Immunology

300
Maybe spoliers here...
I enjoyed it. But I must say I am afraid I came into it with expectations raised to high. This really isn't a film I would consider epic and there were certainly aspects that irked me such as the oracle whose supposed real utterances I thought would have been more dramatic than the fictional one uttered for a price, which led to Leonidas' "breaking of the law" by ignoring the oracle. This of course renders the 300 Spartans' epitaph rather silly: Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

But, this film is less about history than it is about myth. Myth in the sense that certain human truths are being shared through a tale that has grown out of proportion to the real events which might (did) take place. Yes, the Persians have monsters and primitive hand grenades...but really, the film does a great job (I thought) of making what ought to have been absurd, at least excusable and at most downright believable and appropriate. Over the top, but the filmmakers make no apologies for it...they even prepare you for it.

The scenery was fantastic in the truest sense of the word and the film was easily able to make a group of men who could have very well seemed like members of "The Village People" end up looking like serious bad asses. "Lock and load" takes on a whole new and powerful meaning with regard to the phalanx.

There is more to this film than viagra-charged testosterone. There is much to consider when a man about to die curses his traitor with the words: "May you live forever"

I am still mulling it over...there are some very powerful scenes, such as the would be traitor's temptation. Rejected by Spartan society obsessed with self-sacrifice for the good of Sparta, and then embraced by Persian society willing to indulge his every need (indeed it is portrayed as a place of unimaginable self-indulgent excess)...one can easily see how this man would ultimately conspire against the Spartans, and Greece.

Bloody? You bet. But not as bad as I thought. By the way, here is a pretty good synopsis of the real battle.