GRRRAHG!!!
This is not a movie review.
I watched 300 today. However, while it is true that I have now seen it, I don’t know if it was a good movie. For all my study of character and structure, for all my constant analysis of hours of storytelling each day, I have no clue how I would rate this film..
That’s because I didn’t watch 300. I watched 300: The IMAX Experience.
Now, I’ve been to IMAX movies before. I saw plenty as a kid at the Aquarium or Science Center, some delightful aerial trip through a volcano or some such. And I remember reading about the advances in the early part of this decade when engineers figured out how to transfer 35 mm film prints to the larger 70mm IMAX format without loss. I saw one of the Harry Potters that way, and caught the 3-D Polar Express.
This was something different.
When I say I don’t know if I saw a good movie today, it’s because I didn’t go to a movie. I went to an experience. I’m not exaggerating. The screen was so large that you couldn’t look at the whole thing. You had to pick which part of the screen you would watch at any one time. People took their seats and started wowing before the movie started. And it was another transition to the awe factor once images started to play. Supposedly there was a technology involved that generated a minor 3-D effect, without the glasses. After the TRAILER for Spider-man 3, a woman a few seats over declared, “That was beautiful.” Almost tearfully. For a preview.
And then the movie starts, and it’s as visually rich as anything you’ve seen, taking great advantage of this wonderful technology. Here was no Lord of the Rings, no Braveheart, but something gorgeous in its own right. The character development was nowhere nearly as thin as reviews had suggested. Despite some overly fantastic images, the plot was, for the most part, historically sound. Not that I cared. I had 12,000 Watts of sound pumping at me as the Spartans proved themselves to be major badasses. It was a gorgeous study of the human form. It was violence made beautiful. It was the pinnacle of spectacle. I lived the story. I left the theater ready to battle ancient Persians.
Go see this movie, and see it on the biggest IMAX screen in a 200-mile radius. Do it now, or you are nothing but a philosopher and a boy lover.
Xanthe Neal on 
jane on
March 19th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Yeah, there wasn’t much of a story — big army threatens little army, little army decides to fight them. Hour of bloodshed. Memory of dead soldiers inspires country to send bigger army.
Sure looked pretty though.
Mike StandishReply – Quote