enemies, desecrates their remains, insults allies and confuses death with glory. His troops are like al Qaeda in adult diapers.
The crack about boy-love becomes central when we meet Xerxes: He’s modeling the latest in earrings, dog collars, lipstick and eyeliner, like an 8-foot RuPaul. It’s hard to escape the idea that Leonidas is a king who just doesn’t like queens.
Leo frames his struggle as a war against barbarism, but his is a “culture” that puts babies to the sword for looking like weaklings. He ignores both religious counsel – a half-naked oracle chick who delivers her messages via writhing performance art – and Spartan law, seemingly because he views death as a promotion.
Even the softer voice of Leo’s wife (Lena Headey) tells him not, “Pick up a gallon of milk on your way back” but “Come back with your shield or on it.” Like “no prisoners,” which also pops up here, this is a familiar battle cry that makes no sense unless violence is war’s goal rather than its means.
So our “hero” is a psycho, which puts a hollow at the center of the story. But can’t we just ignore the politics and enjoy the decapitations?
To a degree, yes. The awesomely stylized look – every tendon quivers in the breeze as necks celebrate their liberation from heads – is a new blueprint for comic-book films. Rather than trying to make the fake look real, as in “Ghost Rider,” “300” makes a real battle look fake: Every frame calls attention to the artistry with which it was drawn, and the violence is so designed and polished that it isn’t disgusting.
The movie literalizes, to terrific effect, many legendary lines: When the Persians say their arrows will blot out the sun, the Spartans vow to fight in the shade. And so they do, as the foot soldiers of CGI technology blast the screen with their giddiest, gaudiest effects. Sensory gluttony is reason enough to see a movie, and few epics overstuff the eyes like this one.
But keeping in mind Slate’s Mickey Kaus’ Hitler Rule – never compare anything to Hitler – it isn’t a stretch to imagine Adolf’s boys at a “300” screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lininNOg up to see it again.