If 300 represents an evolution in 'virtual' cinema, then at the same time it tells a story that transports us back to the violent roots of western civilisation.

| Jul 6, 2010

300 has one-dimensional caricatures who talk like professional wrestlers plugging their next feud.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 8, 2008

In this handsome pantomime, the performances are not what we are watching.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 14, 2007

It is violent enough to make you shudder and close enough to fascist art to make your skin crawl.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 6, 2007

A muscle-magazine fantasy crossed with a video game and an Army recruiting film.

| Mar 26, 2007

Apart from anything else, the idea of America having the Spartans' underdog status is not plausible.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 24, 2007

Visually stunning, thoroughly belligerent and as shallow as a pygmy's paddling pool, this is a whole heap of style tinged with just a smidgen of substance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 23, 2007

300 was as pathetically puerile as I had expected.

| Mar 21, 2007

It might have been one of the great all-time mad, bad movies but for one thing - it's just sooo boring.

| Mar 17, 2007

Taken on it's own terms - as Greek myth meets Looney Tunes - it's kind of a masterpiece.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 17, 2007

As to this pumped-up spectacle's other aims, it's anybody's guess: selling gladiatorial chest-beating as beefcake erotica? Combining a movie and its own video-game spin-off into one package? Being both a dessert topping and a floor wax?

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 10, 2007

Part of the fascination of the Thermopylae story is that it really happened, and it helped define real heroism. There's nothing remotely like reality to be had in this film.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Mar 10, 2007

The kids just want to have fun. Many of them will. But what does that say about another Greek contribution -- Western civilization?

| Mar 10, 2007

If the movie's neocon message is as thin as a politician's excuse, that's to be expected. But what's surprising here is that the sights are just as meagre.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 9, 2007

Filled from first frame to last with images that are meant to burn themselves into your memory and force you to tell your friends about what you just saw.

Full Review | Mar 9, 2007

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 lining up to see it again.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 9, 2007

Watching 300, there's the arresting sense of eavesdropping on another time.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2007

It's impossible not to be moved by its nearly nonstop visual assault.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2007

It's most definitely a Spartan movie, yet it's really all about wretched excess.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2007

Does the film stay faithful to the Miller and Varley's vision? Indeed it does -- to a kunch!

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2007