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I’m back, gentle readers! Sorry for being away for so long, and thanks to Craig and Reverend Matt for keeping hope alive while I endured my apartment-moving adventure. To celebrate my triumphant return, I eviscerate 300! Enjoy.

Loud, obnoxious, and completely devoid of irony, 300 is one of the few films in modern history to achieve stratospheric levels of self-parody long before its release. The bombastic trailer (complete with blaring Nine Inch Nails music) inspired more self-conscious giggling than awe, and by the time the film hit theaters, an endless series Internet memes featuring bellows of “THIS… IS… (noun)” and animated images of Gerard Butler’s screaming face had proliferated nearly everywhere on the Internet. Soon, Michael J. Nelson’s Rifftrax will feature a humorous commentary on the movie which is, to my mind, almost certainly redundant. 300 is its own best parody.

Spartaarrrgghhgllffpph!

Set in what one can only assume is the ancient history of a bizarre parallel dimension, 300 is the story of the Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leading his stalwart band of white, manly men into battle against a fearsome army of swarthy, fey, nipple-ringed Persians. The Persians are led by the fearsome god-king Xerxes, who, if we are to believe this movie, had more piercings than Vyvyan from the Young Ones, wore a gold lamé diaper, and talked like Dietrich Bader. Ostensibly a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, 300 doesn’t play so much like a battle as a bloody, frantic paean to male adolescence. White, homophobic, testosterone-addled right-wing adolescence.

At first, it seems as though a movie featuring lesbian mutants and ogres with saws for hands would be incapable of sustaining any kind of meaningful political statement — after all, it is aggressively uncomplicated; a group of yelling, shirtless men killing other yelling, shirtless men until there’s no one left to kill. But the movie’s blatant racism, overwhelming fascist overtones, and thinly-veiled allusions to American foreign policy simply trample over any pre-existing sense of fun. The Spartans are, for all intents and purposes, Americans, going off to fight a creepy, androgynous, dark-skinned foreign power that threatens their “freedom.” At best, Zack Snyder seems to have set out to parody United States foreign policy without calling attention to the blatant irony present in nearly every frame; at worst, he simply wasn’t aware of what he was doing, and all of this happened by accident — a sobering thought if ever there was one.

Freedoooommmmbabllghhlh!

First of all, let’s deal with the historical inaccuracies. Now, I’m generally the last person to get uptight about historical accuracies in Hollywood movies. I don’t write off a film if someone uses a fork or a longbow when they’re not supposed to, and I’ll even forgive the occasional wild foray into speculation (see: Kingdom of Heaven) if it makes good drama or a good statement. Snyder and Miller, however, have the stones to both ignore vast and significant swaths of history, populate their historical fantasy with killer attack rhinos and troll ninjas, and then claim with a straight face that the film is both “90% historically accurate” and also in no way allegorical. Well, sorry, no.

Wilblauugghhhh!!!!

The Spartans of 300 are, if we are to take the screenplay at face value, a brave and masculine people, making vague rumblings about the “freedom” and “liberty” that the monstrous, dark-skinned Persians want to take away. The film fails to mention, of course, that the Spartans themselves maintained an enormous slave class, and were in part so martially inclined because they needed to be to keep their slaves in line. The Spartans were also generally loathed worldwide because they were ruthless conquerors, and prospered mostly by squashing other civilizations. The Spartans had no real literature or art of their own, and were generally uncultured imbeciles. Well, never mind, I guess.

USA! USA! USA! HOOOOOHHHHH!!!

One example in particular, however, really gets under my skin. The latter part of the film makes much ado about an “adultery” subplot, wherein the villanous Theron (Dominic West) rapes the queen, then attempts to use her “adultery” against her as a political statement. There’s only one problem. By Spartan law, the wife of any soldier was considered widowed when she left the city, and could legally marry (or boink) anyone she liked. Women, in fact, were given a level of authority and power unheard of in the rest of the classical world, but here in Snyder and Miller’s misogynistic world, they’re nothing more than playthings with their tits out, with roles demanding nothing more than lying on one’s back, covered in baby oil, looking breathless and seductive. Why bother with even a teaspoon full of history when raging misogyny will do instead? 300 is, apparently, a film about ancient Greece that thinks it’s set in medieval Europe.

MURGHBLRLLFLAAAAAAGH!!!

But is it entertainment? Suppose we put aside, for a moment, everything that’s historically and politically warped about this film, and just take it at face value as “just a fun movie.” After all, I set out with every intention of debunking what I felt was an over-politicized and unjustly criticized movie. I was ready to turn a blind eye to any kind of political subtext and just take 300 at face value. (That I couldn’t is testament to just how warped this movie is at its most basic level, but that’s another issue entirely.)

Is it fun? Well, that depends. Do you enjoy watching CGI blood globules spray in every direction for ninety minutes? Do you enjoy seeing shirtless men bellow out their lines at the top of their lungs as they stagger through lengthy tracking shots, beheading everyone in their path? Do you like your movies completely unburdened by any kind of storytelling? If so, you are in for a real treat.

Granted, there is some level of virtuosity and craftsmanship present in 300 that keeps it from being entirely worthless, almost all of it rooted in the visuals. If you turn off the sound and just blast some Wagner at top volume while watching 300, you might easily find it a visual masterpiece. The film is shot in rich, stark, brooding color, and the battle sequences are occasionally striking, although they lose a great deal of luster through their constant bone-crushing repetition. There’s no real verve or joy in these battles; just a grueling slog through oceans of blood — ironically, probably the most realistic thing about the film. Again, if that’s your idea of a good time, 300 delivers in abundance.

Overall, I can’t find it in my heart to recommend 300, as I found it juvenile, offensive, and — worst of all — boring. In terms of unadulterated bloodlust, this film delivers like no film in recent memory; but if you want an ancient period piece with lots of sex and violence and a great deal more substance into the bargain, pick up Rome on DVD instead.

Not recommended. 5/10