Saw
300 last night at the Chinese.
In a nutshell:
Meh.
Oh it was fun enough, with plenty of eye-candy (of both the cinematic and homoerotic variety)
I never read the 'graphic novel,' so I am judging it just as a film. Entertaining, but nothing more. It was hokey ... but not quite hokey enough if it was going to go in that direction. The battle scenes were cool, the buff men were gorgeous ... but the most interesting part to me was the prologue about Spartan ritual upbringing ... and there didn't seem to be any fascinating revelations about Spartan way-of-life for the rest of the film.
(There were plenty of over-the-top revelations about Persian ways-of-life ... but these were only good for a laugh and much rolling of eyes.)
The "graphic" look of the film was ok ... but nothing nearly as beautiful and bitchin' cool looking, imo, as the similar comic-book visual treatment in
Sin City.
As for the gayboy thrills ... I was a bit disappointed. There were a lot of hot bods on those near-naked Spartans ... but with barely 3 of 300 good faces to match, the worked-out battle bodies weren't all that arousing to me.
But, whew, there was one really gorgeous Spartan soldier ... the young son of the Captain, barely old enough for battle, full of warrior prowess and budding studliness. I hope it's not a terrible spoiler to say that he meets an untimely end. The point of the movie is that all 300 die.
The film will likewise die pretty quickly from my memory ... but it was a fun night at the movies.