This. Is. Crap!

[yendi]

Shadesong rented The 300 from the library.

It might actually be worse than Van Helsing.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie this unaware of how ironic it is. This is the filmmaking equivalent of The Shaggs. Maybe worse.

Comments

[dustyskinandall.livejournal.com]

What are you talking about? I thought it was a fantastic romantic comedy!

[yendi]

Yeah, but the constant laugh track annoyed me.

[norda.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmmm. Sorry you guys didn't like it.

I don't quite rate 300 as poorly as I did VAN HELSING, because VAN HELSING actually had potential to be better than the sum of its parts, and 300 makes no excuse that it is anything but loud, manly and brash.

It might also have been the company in which I viewed it. After a brain-beating day of Too Much Life, having a chance, in the company of people equally as loopy as me, to just bellow back at a screen was cathartic.

Just my opinion.

[yendi]

As I mentioned to kradical below, I have high standards for my trash and cathartic movies, and this one failed to meet 'em.

[ex-yakaveng.livejournal.com]

300 was the most still action movie I've ever seen. Having never read the graphic novel (nor seen Sin City because blazepoet tried to convince me it would be too violent for me), I certainly found it visually interesting and very stylistically different. Still... it wasn't a good movie. I did pick it up on Friday for $4 at Target, though.

As for Van Helsing-- it could have been good. It could have been goofy and skewered many things about the folklore of vampires and werewolves, but... I couldn't stomach watching the whole thing. Kate Beckinsale has done that and Underworld now-- will she stop with the werewolf movies any time?

[yendi]

Honestly, I'm willing to forgive Kate, mainly because these movies give her excuses to dress up in leather corsets a lot.

I'm not sure that 300 is less violent than Sin City, to be honest. Although the violence in the latter has more of a "here and now" effect. And isn't broken up by slo-mo shots every twelve seconds.

[eustaciavye.livejournal.com]

Wow, bad enough to invoke The Shaggs. I think "shaggsesque" is the ultimate form of bad.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Strong words, indeed.

[ponygirl118.livejournal.com]

I was watchng that movie when I was on a plane to Israel. Nothing is as funny as reading the subtitles in Hebrew.

[quillismightier.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I actually liked 300 a great deal, compared to a lot of movies out there. Probably among one of my favorites.

[kradical.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed it as a magnificent piece of good trash. It was also a picture-perfect (pun intended) adaptation of the comic book....

[yendi]

The latter is damning with faint praise, indeed.

As for the former, I have high standards for my trash. :-)

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

ayup, it's fucking dreadful, and one of the most racist and homophobic movies i've seen in a long time.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

While also being the gayest movie ever.

[poobah103.livejournal.com]

It's easy to dislike a movie when at least 35% of it is slow-motion images of beefy-looking guys stabbing each other.

On the other hand, it's easy to *like* a movie for the exact same reason...

(But to be fair- anyone who claims that "300" is better than "Sin City" should be punched. Hard. And repeatedly.)

[yendi]

Honestly, without the slow-mo, it wouldn't have been long enough to be called a feature film. It could have run before "Sin City" as a bonus feature.

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

Hey, man, I liked Van Helsing.

I went into 300 already with a hatred for Frank Miller so I felt no twinge of disappointment. It was exactly what I thought it would be. A movie bursting at the seams with abs and testosterone. What more were you expecting?

[yendi]

Honestly, I'd already had my expectations lowered for 300. I knew it would probably suck, but I figured that there'd at least be good action sequences (basically, I set my bar for "Matrix Reloaded," and the movie still failed to reach the bar).

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

It did what it meant to, adapt a comic book. It was worth watching, once, so long as you didn't pay much and didn't do it in a theater.

It was better than "Snakes on A Plane" and "Van Helsing".

[wakingdreaming.livejournal.com]

Nothing can ever be better than Snakes On A Plane.

[curt-holman.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind that every frame looks like the airbrush mural on the side of a bitchin' van in the 1970s, I liked it.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

Dude:

Your response surprises me.

In my experience, the people who disliked 300 were the people who expected history.

Those who expected a comic book -- as I kinds thought you would -- were pretty happy.

But then, I liked Van Helsing.

[yendi]

I expected a good story (which can exist within or without history or a comic book feel). I didn't get it.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Gives you real hope for the Watchmen movie, dunnit?

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

The only way they could successfully pull off a Watchmen adaptation would be to make it:

1) animated in the style of Dave Gibbons
2) 17 hours long

Madness?

[thelastrobot.livejournal.com]

My biggest complaint about 300 is that every time someone jumped through the air in slow motion, camera flashes should've gone off.

Or the music from when Sonic gets a hundred rings.

Re: Madness?

[yendi]

Ha!

[amokk]

I thought it was more homoerotic than ironic... I like the Robot Chicken adaptation.

[wakingdreaming.livejournal.com]

I think it was ironically homoerotic.

[laurelian.livejournal.com]

Can't say I agree that 300 sucks. But then, I wouldn't say that Van Helsing sucked either.

Of course, in the case of the former, I'm speaking from the point of view of someone just going to the theater to see an enjoyable movie. I have no frame of reference for whether or not it was accurate compared to the comic book. Certainly it was campy in places...I mean, what were they thinking with Xerxes (sp?)? But all in all, I found it very enjoyable.

Of course I, for one, enjoy seeing a movie where male nudity has a stronger focus than female nudity. If we're going to objectify the human body anyway, it's only fair that male bodies get equal time in the media.

As for Van Helsing, I thought it was enjoyable *because* it was silly and campy. I'd actually thought that maybe they intended for it to read that way.

But, to each their own. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy 300. :(

[yendi]

Oh, hell, the suitability of 300 as an adaptation doesn't bother me at all; in fact, the faithfulness to the book make it worse, not better.

I don't mind the male nudity, but the fact that A) the movie exists in utter denial of its own homosexual overtones (to the point of making homosexual jokes at the expense of Athenians), and B) the movie wasn't comfortable with real male bodies, and went for CGI, both present major problems for me.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

You are thus now ready to read 300 In Fifteen Minutes, written by cleolinda.

You're welcome.

[yendi]

'tis cute.

Of course, "300 in fifteen minutes" would also refer to the running time of the movie if they were to cut out all the slow motion scenes.

[rowancat.livejournal.com]

I rather liked the Simpsons, Robot Chicken and countless other versions
on YouTube ;)

[wakingdreaming.livejournal.com]

The Simpsons did a parody of it? I don't remember that. Do you mean South Park?

[thegreatjohnzo.livejournal.com]

300 was terrible, and it continues to ruin my life to this day. (for example, best buy does not stock air force one but does instead have 100 copies of 300 on the shelf.)

that movie has turned me off of every frank miller comic ever. well, that and the second dark knight. i'd rather watch the robot chicken version than that pile of crap any day of the week.

[yendi]

You know, much as I hate AF1, it's leagues beyond 300.

[wakingdreaming.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why I care, because I hated the movie too, but you calling it The 300 is driving me nuts. It's just 300.

[yendi]

I know that's technically true, but 300 without an article ahead of it or a quantified noun after it annoys me.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

It was totally worth it for all the good 300 jokes that followed.

[yendi]

That might be the only saving grace.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

It was well-done adaptation of the source material.

[yendi]

That is damning with the faintest praise imaginable. :-)

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

I'll re-share my synopsis that I posted after seeing it last March...

Wherein I save you the ticket money:

Spartans were bad-ass.

Everyone else was a fag.

Especially the Persians.

Xerxes wasn't just a fag, he was a proto-transsexual. As such, of course, he was more evil than anyone ever.

AAAARGH SPARTA IS AWESOME.

CLANGCLANGCLANG STABBITY STAB STAB.

Spartans? Bad-ass.

Women = cum receptacles. Spartan women = good for birthing Spartan men. Spartan girls = dump 'em on the mountain and let ugly old lepers rape 'em till they go crazy and speak in tongues and become 'oracles.'

And yet Sparta = freedom.

YAARRRGH WAR IS SO FUCKIN' AWESOME DOOOOOOD *monster guitar crunch*

OMG SPARTANS R TEH BAD-ASSEST OF TEH BAD-ASS.

Xerxes: *is freaky*

Lesbians in Xerxes' tent: *are freaky*

Hunchback in Xerxes' tent: *fits right in*

I KEEL YOU WITH SWORD. I SLAP YOU WITH SHIELD. I BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH MY OWN TESTICLES.

Persians: *ded*

Leonidas: 'Shit, we're gonna die anyway. SPARTA FIGHT KILL FAGS AAAAAGH'

Spartans: *ded*

end.

[yendi]

Hee!

[rowancat.livejournal.com]

I know there is an Athens, Georgia. And there are Spartas in many states
including New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois.
They must be having a field day with this movie
with lines like "Spartans! Tonight We Dine in Hell!"