Zach Snyder follows up his suprisingly entertaining re-make of Romero's Zombie-fest ‘Dawn of the Dead’ with this stunning adaptation of George Miller's graphic novel, ‘300.’ The tale of the legendary 300 Spartan warriors who stood alone to defend Sparta from the barbarian hordes who threatened their homeland, ‘300’ utilizes the studio and techniques created by Robert Rodriguez for his film version of Frank Miller's graphic novel ‘Sin City.’ As though Miller's highly stylized visuals have leapt to life, the screen burns with vivid colour and imagery. It's like an ancient ‘prequel’ of sorts to ‘Sin City’ – hard boiled, violent, mysoginist and cruel. Gerard Butler stomps, snarls and smashes scenery in a marvellous performance that could so easily slip into silly camp parody – yet he remains sincere and even sympathetic as the warrior king holding back the hordes against insurmountable odds. Violent in a totally over-the-top manner, just as ‘Sin City’, this is comic book boy's own battling brought up to the level of pop art. Beautiful to look at, bruising to behold. Think Ridley Scott's ‘Gladiator’ meets Rodriguez's ‘Sin City’ by way of an early ‘Dirty Harry’ and you can't go wrong. And it's not just one for the boys (who may find all those half-naked bronzed and oiled muscle-men a little too homoerotic!) – women will love it too, as it accurately portrays the strong Spartan women who, in the warrior culture, are portrayed as in many ways equal to and as strong as their menfolk. ‘300’ is great over-the-top cinema as spectacle. Like ‘Ben Hur’ on acid! Adz
