Victor David Hanson Reviews 300

Sort of. I mean, he reviews it, but it's historian's review, not really a movie critic's.

Does he like it? He seems to like it some, but there was a definite lack of genuine cinematic admiration there. (Telling me it's better than Alexander is like tellling me it's better than a genital hernia.) Maybe he just doesn't think in those terms.

But overall, yeah, he likes it:

Why—beside the blood-spattering violence and often one-dimensional characterizations—will some critics not like this, despite the above caveats?

Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary 'who are the good guys' in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. And to suggest that ambiguously these days has perhaps become a revolutionary thing in itself.

posted by Ace at 09:43 AM

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