300: the review

                    DARIN
               (via IRC to Maciej)
     We just saw 300.

                    MACIEJ
               (via IRC)
     That movie reminded me a lot of work.

                    DARIN
               (via IRC)
     Hopefully not the shell-of-shields scene.

Darin repeats Maciej's comment to Diane.

                    DIANE
     Wow. I'm going to have to stop by your
     office a LOT more.

                    MACIEJ
               (via IRC)
     Tell her it's not so much six-packs as
     it is pony kegs.

300 is ostensibly the story of when the 300 Spartans stood against approximately 1 billion Persians and almost had them at a stalemate. has a lot of half-naked actors with amazingly great bodies who run around with swords hacking one another to bits. In addition, there’s also some amazing photography that had me wondering, How exactly did they film that? (Even given that a lot of the movie is blue screen and not especially high-tech special effects, I was left wondering that a lot. The director of photography and the production designer should be getting a lot of work off this flick.)

Also: half-naked men with great bodies. (Oh. Did I mention that already?) Gerard Butler has two personal trainers in the credits. I figured it worked like this: Personal trainer #1 works Butler over, and then when he’s done, Personal trainer #2 shows up and works Butler into the ground.

It’s not as horribly, untenably violent as I was expecting, probably because it retains its comic-booky feel and the violence doesn’t feel wrenching the way it would in a more realistic movie. If you’re planning on seeing it, you should definitely see it on the big screen.

ETA: How tough were the Spartans? They had smallpox shots. (One naked guy kept getting closeups on his arm and I kept thinking, Did no editor see that and say, Hey, we need an airbrush here stat?)