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For months now I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of 300. This is the movie adaptation of a graphic novel from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. I finally got to go see it on Saturday (disappointingly, not at the Imax).

Let me preface this informal review by saying I have read the graphic novel a few times (albeit a few months ago) and have watched the trailer many times since it was first posted on Apple’s site.

All told, I would give the movie a rating of “very good” or, to put it numerically, 4 out of 5 stars. The movie was not short, but it was entertaining, a lot of very cool things happened, the characters were great, and it was mega-violent. Visually the movie was amazing, a bit cartoonish in its representation of the characters, but only because many of the people and situations were so extreme- for instance an armored rhinoceros charging at the Spartan line.

As with the book the plot was simplistic: a small group of Greeks fighting off the enormous Persian army at a place known as the Hot Gates. While the movie largely remained true to the book and did not leave out any material, it did add a few scenes and plot twists, as well as expand on others. These were, not surprisingly, where things went wrong. The movie added a great deal of politics to the dealings in Sparta while the 300 were fighting as well as one crazy scene where Xerxes makes a deal with Ephialtes (a Spartan outcast). The backstabbing that goes on in Sparta at the time that Leonidas and his men were defending Greece was extremely (almost ridiculously) un-Spartan and seemed very out of place in the movie- the blame originally fell to the corrupt Ephors not a Spartan. Also the movie took an exremely odd detour when Ephialtes met Xerxes. Here there was a tent full of oddities including- if I remember correctly- an executioner with some sort of crab claws for arms, a all sorts of woman of questionable repute, and a donkey playing a lute. Anyway, it was really strange and completely unnecessary.

The movie did have some awesome moments though. Interestingly these were not the ones I had loved so much in the trailer (those lacked the power and passion I expected, though still sounded cool and would have been the highlight of any other movie). One of the scenes I was very impressed with was when Xerxes met Leonidas. Xerxes, the Persian king, was about 8 feet tall and seemed very much like the god-king he claims to be. Both David Wenham and Vincent Regan also did excellent jobs (as did Gerard Butler, but that was no surprise after seeing the trailer).

If you are looking for some ultra-violence mixed with a brief history lesson, then I think you can’t go wrong with 300. The movie took some unfortunate liberties and it lacked the heart-pounding excitement of the trailer, but it was worth the price of admission. Of the two people I saw the movie with one liked it a lot and the other was a bit taken aback, but enjoyed most of it. The movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter and some aspects of it could have been thought out better, but still there are a lot “wow” moment. Fans of the graphic novel will not be disappointed and cinema fans will definitely enjoy the visual and technical aspects of the movie.

The trailer is, in my opinion, as close as anyone can get to perfect so definitely check that out before seeing the movie. It has all the best moments of the movie and edits out the discussions, voice overs, and deceit that gave the movie its 2 hour (or so) run time.

To generalize about the reviews I have read- particularly A.O. Scott’s in the New York Times-most were overly harsh and seemed to have, at times, missed the point. I would not rely too heavily on them and would be sure to check out the trailer and read book before passing judgement.

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