300

"A film for Everyone!" ▲

OK, so this really isn't a film for everyone... but it has elements that would appeal to a broad range of viewers: blood, glory, half-naked men, Gerard Butler, graphic novel stylizing, half-naked women, more half-naked men, gore, fantastic battle sequences, monsters, men in drag, dead people nailed to trees, a half-naked Gerard Butler... did I forget anything? Oh, and all the half-naked people are incredibly muscular and/or hot.

Sex scenes seemed to drone on a bit long (excluding the rape scene), but otherwise, the pacing is taut, like Gerard Butler's abs. Fantastic film timing on the fight sequences. The director alternates fast and slow speeds on the most intense parts of battle, adding a "screenshot" effect that could have been plastered down in graphic novel form and sold as a refurbished comic book.

Apparently based on an actual historic event, the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC, director Zack Snyder takes us on an odyssey with our protagonists into the gaping maw of death... so to speak. Intense, enjoyable.

Favorite moments: color-saturated imagery, battle sequences, comraderie, Gerard Butler.