300

Just got back from going to see 300 with a couple of friends, Amir and Jacqui. It was good. Not great, not amazing, not spectacular--good. If I were writing a review, I'd give it 3/5, maybe 3.5, but probably not. It's a decent flick.

What I found interesting was talking about it in the car after. Now, each of us had a different perspective. I have read the graphic novel; Jacqui had seen it before; and Amir was completely fresh. And you know what parts of the movie all three of us thought sucked? Anything that wasn't in the graphic novel. At first, I thought it was simply me being one of those people who sit in the theatres and go "That wasn't in Miller's comic! Fuck that!"

But no.

No, it was unanimous: all of the shit with the queen that was thrown in? Worthless. Slowed the movie right down and was, generally, boring as fuck. And, let's be honest, all of that stuff was the typical Hollywood let's-round-out-the-picture-and-make-it-a-Movie bullshit. My friends could spot it a mile away.

It's stuff like that that's my biggest problem with adaptations, and what generally pisses off fans of the original pieces of work the most. It's not the CHANGES, it's the changes that don't actually add to the movie, but, in fact, detract from it as every single scene with the queen does. Once they leave Sparta, the movie should leave Sparta. What happens there isn't important.

Otherwise, it was a good movie. At some points, the overly stylised nature get in the way. On that regard, one cannot help compare it to Sin City, which I think is the superior adaptation. I think the problem was the mixing of realist and unrealistic stylised elements. But, not to a point where it harms the movie in any large way.

The flick is worth seeing.