300: Special Edition

DVD Reviews | Jul 30th, 2007

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Starring Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham, Dominic West, Rodrigo Santoro
Written By: Zack Snyder, Frank Miller
Directed By: Zack Snyder
Studio: Warner Brothers
Buy on Amazon.com link

Damn I should have seen this movie in the theaters. This movie deserves to be on a giant screen, or a big TV at least. Thankfully I have a 50 inch Tv to see this beautifully movie! 300 is a great popcorn flick done in such a stylistic way that it will make you want to watch this movie over and over again. And now you can since it’s now on DVD!

300 is inspired from true events, and based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. Gerald Butler stars as King Leonidas who leads 300 Spartan warriors into battle against a vast number of invading Persians. The movie starts out with Leonidas as a young kid and seeing what a young Spartan goes through at an early age. They are pretty much trained at an early age to be best warrior & solider they can be, and to live & die for Sparta. The Spartans are warned that a massive Persian army (lead by Xerxes) is heading their way and going to kill everyone who stands in their way. The King obviously isn’t going to stand for that and decides to take on this ginormous army with only 300 willing soldiers by his side. The rest of the Sparta thinks it’s foolish and a suicide mission, so while The King is fighting; his wife is trying to sway the government into sending soldiers to their aid.

For having never seen this movie yet, I was blown away at the special effects and the cinematography. You go into the movie thinking Sin City looked amazing, but 300 makes that film look like South Park. Just everything is so stylized, and looks awesome! Everything looks yellow in the day time, and at night is this navy blue color. Just like Sin City, it was all done in front of green screens. Unlike movies like Star Wars Episode 1-3, the acting isn’t that wooden or stiff like in those movies. Besides the cinematography, i’m sure every person is talking about the bodies of all the warriors. All the girls are probably salivating from the mouth at the buff men and all the guys are thinking to themselves, “how can I get my body like that?” There’s even workout routines out there. I haven’t read up on it too fully, but to me it seems like you have to work out like 6 hours a day for 6 months. And who really has that time except actors or bodybuilders. I can barely get to the gym for a half hour.

Now while the film’s look is impressive, there are some things that kind of bug me about the movie. I think the stop and start camera motion gets annoying very quickly. After awhile you just want to see things done in normal speed, and not sped up or slowed down to make it look cool. I also think having these deformed creatures and mutant like people in the movie made the movie cheesier than it could have been. But I guess Frank Miller and company didn’t want this movie to be too serious, and wanted to show Miller’s interpretation of what happened in Sparta. I mean those creatures look cool, I just think it’s unnecessary. That’s really about it for my complaints with the movie. It serves its purpose as a kick ass action flick, with great visuals, female nudity, buff dudes, and hideous creatures. What more can you ask for in a movie!

The Special Edition DVD has an entire disc worth of stuff to watch. There’s some additional scenes but they really aren’t that spectacular. There’s just one or two scenes of that deformed guy, but the director said it slowed things down. The fact or fiction featurette I liked because they straightened out some misconceptions about the movie and the story. Other features include a bunch of webisodes, audio commentary and a few other featurettes that fans of the movie will enjoy. With all the bonus material on this disc, I still think there could have been a lot more added to this DVD but maybe Warner Brothers is planning some type of ultimate edition DVD?

I was surprised I liked 300 so much but if you haven’t seen it yet, you gotta see it! It’s got action, violence, gore, ugly creatures, beautiful people and more action. Fans of Gladiator, Sin City, Braveheart, and Troy will dig this movie a lot!

Features:
Additional Scenes of the Traitorous Hunchback and Never-Before-Seen Giant Warriors
Frank Miller’s Vision Realized on Film
300 Spartans – Fact Or Fiction?: The Shocking Life of a Spartan Revealed
Who Were The Spartans?: How the Actors Built Their Characters Based on Spartan Customs
Webisodes: Go on Set with the Cast and Crew
Commentary by Director Zack Snyder – and more!

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
SPANISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 2.40:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: I loved all the fight scenes (so pretty much the whole movie?)
Rating: NR
Running Time: 116 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: