300

This weekend, the action film "300" set a record for the biggest March opening ever, and was slightly behind the openings of "Matrix: Reloaded" and "The Passion of the Christ" as the third-ranked opening of an "R" rated movie ever.

My wife and I went to see "300" this Saturday at the Adrian cinema. The place was packed, not an empty seat anywhere. As a depiction of a historical event, I have a mixed review of the movie. I could have wished for a little more development of the background--we come to learn very little of the Persians except that Xerxes is some kind of androgynous monster and that the army is made up of slaves and beasts from all over the world. We don't really get an idea of the importance of the battle of Thermopylae being the Spartan sacrifice that served to unite the Greek city-states against the common enemy--Persia. But we get a real sense of the Spartan training and attitude, and certainly the unwillingness to yield to a conqueror and to die fighting for freedom is as inspirational as "Braveheart." In the context of the global war on terror, the defenders of democratic ideals ought to be celebrated as heroic, and those who favor surrender and appeasement ought to be viewed as traitorous.

It's hard for me to recommend my students to go and see it, though. It's very violent, much more so than "Gladiator" or "Troy." There is nudity. The slow-motion camera work began to weary me after a while. But I'd enjoy hearing the comments of anyone who saw the film, whether you liked it or not, or how well the battle of Thermopylae was recreated on the big screen.