You’ll Know What I Did Last Week Volume 4 Number 1
by
The Mischievous Prophet
So this is really a column about what I did last month, because it’s been so long since we updated. And as you’ll be able to tell, I haven’t done much. Sorry about that.
300. It’s been awhile since I watched this film, and I’ve been letting it stew in the back of my mind ever since. I’ve read other people’s reviews, and I’ve revisited my own thoughts several times. I’ve listened to fanboys drool, and I’ve heard more about Gerard Butler’s abs than I ever thought I would. And this is the conclusion I’ve come to.
It’s an okay movie. And that’s about it.
I had higher hopes. The trailer looked really cool, in an impersonal, graphic violence way. I really liked director Zack Snyder’s previous work on the Dawn of the Dead remake; unlike the satirical, socially-conscious original, Snyder’s Dawn was an exercise in kineticism, but at least it was a poppy, fun kind of ultraviolence. It had characters whose names we knew.
300 (which, I believe, would have been more accurately titled 20 or 30, as I seldom spotted 300 Spartans on screen) seems joyless. Unlike Dawn, it takes itself so seriously that it leeches away its own spirit. The battle scenes are well-choreographed and visually stunning, but the washed-out backgrounds look too much like a video game. Perhaps I’ve been playing too much God of War 2, but once I bought that game and started the button-mashing mass slaughter of faceless enemies, I thought to myself, “Just rename this character Leonidas and this would look a lot like 300.”
And call me old-fashioned, but I like even my action films to have well-developed plots and characters. In 300, the basic plot goes something like this: “While politicians quibble and intrigue, Leonidas and his men fight to defend a pass against the armies of Xerxes.” That’s pretty much the whole shebang. As for characters, I defy anyone who’s seen this film only once to name a single Spartan soldier besides Leonidas. No fair looking it up on the Internet or seeing the film more than once—just use your memory and see if you can do it. It’s the same problem I had with Black Hawk Down; the action sequences are really good, but the characters are faceless and nameless. They seem to have dropped out of the sky and into this movie, and because I know nothing about them, it’s hard to invest in their story.
Also, how could the young soldier—the guy whose father is also among the Spartans—eviscerate seemingly dozens of enemies in a whirling ballet of swordplay and then get beheaded by one dude on a horse? Seems like he might have heard the guy coming.
I had a good time watching 300, but I have to agree with the critics who have said that it sort of disappears from your memory an hour after it’s over. For a film that wants to be a combination of Braveheart and Gladiator, 300 fails to make its characters live and breathe. I liked its visuals and some of its lines (that whole “Then we will fight in the shade” line is truly badass, even if the “hiding under our shields” scene is a direct homage to (ripoff of?) Mel Gibson’s superior Oscar-winning film), but from Snyder, I hoped for more, especially since I’m a huge fan of graphic novel creator Frank Miller.
The tale of the 300 Spartans who held off Xerxes’ army is true human drama. It deserves more than a pretty okay film as its modern-day commemoration.
God of War 2. This video game, on the other hand, is excellent, if you like your violence graphic and your heroes decidedly anti-. Much like the original God of War, this game finds Kratos, our still-favorite Spartan killing machine, at odds with the gods of Greece. Having taken out Aries in the first game, Kratos’ status as the new god of war has gone to his head, so the gods decide to strip him of his powers. But the Titans, the gods’ old enemies, decide that this is a great opportunity to kill Zeus and reclaim their rightful place in the world.
The visuals are even more stunning and ambitious than last time; it’s legitimately creepy to realize that Atlas is watching you as you crawl across his face. And the gameplay, while relying too much on random button-mashing, is still ultra-cool. You can access great new magics—and you must do so, since Zeus strips you of your old ones—and new combinations. You have to fight enemies both old (like the guy who was about to kill Kratos when he made his original pact with Aries) and new. The puzzles are workable yet challenging, and I really like the occasional “pick up the dead guy and use his body in a creative way” feature.
If you’re still using Playstation 2—and as long as Playstation 3 stays at six hundred bucks, many of us will be—pick up this title. It shows you that the older platform still has its appeal.
300—C+
God of War 2—A
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