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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 3819
Released: July 31, 2007 |
| Our Price: $4.48 |
| Used Price: $2.40 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The epic graphic novel by Frank Miller (Sin City) assaults the screen with the blood, thunder and awe of its ferocious visual style faithfully recreated in an intense blend of live-action and CGI animation. Retelling the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, it depicts the titanic clash in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his massive Persian army. Experience history at swordpoint. And moviemaking with a cutting edge.
DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurette
Other
Photo gallery
Description of 300 (Two-Disc Special Edition):
Like Sin City before it, 300 brings Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel vividly to life. Gerard Butler (Beowulf and Grendel, The Phantom of the Opera) radiates pure power and charisma as Leonidas, the Grecian king who leads 300 of his fellow Spartans (including David Wenham of The Lord of the Rings, Michael Fassbender, and Andrew Pleavin) into a battle against the overwhelming force of Persian invaders. Their only hope is to neutralize the numerical advantage by confronting the Persians, led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), at the narrow strait of Thermopylae.
More engaging than Troy, the tepid and somewhat similar epic of ancient Greece, 300 is also comparable to Sin City in that the actors were shot on green screen, then added to digitally created backgrounds. The effort pays off in a strikingly stylized look and huge, sweeping battle scenes. However, it's not as to-the-letter faithful to Miller's source material as Sin City was. The plot is the same, and many of the book's images are represented just about perfectly. But some extra material has been added, including new villains (who would be considered "bosses" if this were a video game, and it often feels like one) and a political subplot involving new characters and a significantly expanded role for the Queen of Sparta (Lena Headey). While this subplot by director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) and his fellow co-writers does break up the violence, most fans would probably dismiss it as filler if it didn't involve the sexy Headey. Other viewers, of course, will be turned off by the waves of spurting blood, flying body parts, and surging testosterone. (The six-pack abs are also relentless, and the movie has more and less nudity--more female, less male--than the graphic novel.) Still, as a representation of Miller's work and as an ancient-themed action flick with a modern edge, 300 delivers. --David Horiuchi
300 (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
The Greatest Gay Movie EVER!!!! 
2009-12-19 - Personally I don't get 300, but then again I'm not a gay man, but if you're reading this, chances are good you are!
300 is a movie that works much like the old He-Man cartoon used to, appealing to the same demographic and that demographic's secret desire to watch well-developed men wrestle, run, fight and be oh-so mean to one another. I know when I was little in the 80's it seemed like all the boys in the neighborhood would exercise their inner gayness by rushing inside to watch He-Man with its now obvious homo-erotic undertones, but He-Man at his raunchiest was never anything like 300!
Man, it must've taken total courage to make an erotic gay film like this in Hollywood of the Bush era. Shirtless men with oiled bodies running around half-naked, sweating, grunting, holding all manner of phallic-symbol swords, knives, spears, and with great facial hair, too!? I know all my gay male friends are in love with this comic book fantasy and LOVE getting it as a gift for their birthdays. I can just imagine all those "completely straight" husbands in suburbia sitting alone in their media rooms at night after the wifey and kids are tucked in, watching 300 and thinking and thinking and thinking...
So if you're a gay man or think you might be, see this sweaty little flick with that someone special...and have a long smoke afterward!
300 
2009-12-18 - A stunning piece of filmmaking. This movie makes you feel for the characters and never lets up with intensity. If a Greeks 200 years ago were to tell a story about the legend of the mighty Spartans, it would probably be something like this.
Great Movie! Pathetic BRD 
2009-12-15 - The movie was amazing. Unfortunately the Blu-Ray was NOT. My DVD version of 300 looks 10 times better than this garbage which is no exaggeration. The moment I received it in the mail I popped it into my not yet one month old blu-ray replacement player and was overly disappointed. If it weren't for the fact that I'd have to pay return shipping I'd send it back and tell them to give it to their dog as a chew-toy. It just isn't worth purchasing so go ahead and get the regular DVD which has the better picture. I've noticed that the BR of 300 was incorporated with the grainy/nastiness and if this is the case it was an epic fail. Other than the quality of the disk the movie itself was awesome but then again Gerard Butler is a spectacular actor and I've loved nearly all of his movies.
Whispering actors ruin the Blu-ray DVD of "300" -- or what?
2009-11-28 - Half an hour into the Blu-ray DVD of "300" I switched off in order to belatedly study the Amazon reviews, in order to discover if anyone else found the sound so badly muffled, with mumbling, whispering actors, but it seems I may be the only victim, with the volume of our quite new Sony Bravia TV turned to maximum level.
As I have several revamped 70-years-plus films on DVD, including the 1938 masterpiece of Errol Flynn's and Olivia DeHavilland's "Robin Hood", with clear sound, I am baffled as to why 2007 sound technology can be so crudely and feebly inferior.
As for "300" itself, I wondered why they bothered to try to improve on the original "The 300 Spartans" film featuring Richard Egan and Sir Ralph Richardson, created so magnificently in 1962 with credibly effective Spartan armour and uniforms, not the almost-naked he-men ludicrously unsoldierly portrayal of King Leonidas's "300"!!!
Having endured the rest of "300", its music not too bad except for the occasional now crudely-fashionable overdone, mindless percussion, the sound quality was at its almost inaudible worst during scenes back home in Sparta, but very loud during one of the add-on interviews with producers. The only character to impress me with credible portrayal was the courageous Queen of Sparta.
As a campaigner for facts on global warming, I am well used to disputing reason versus fantasy, so I recommend study of Amazon viewers' opinions on the 1962 film, some damning or praising the 2007 version of the Spartans' truly 'magic' action in and around a mountain narrow coastal pass in what is now Turkey, long obliterated by collapsing sediment.
I firmly commend the book "The Year of Thermopylae" by Ernle Bradford (Macmillan, 1980), which includes a now topically controversial mention of 480BC Persian King of Kings Xerxes boasting of Aryan stock!!! Also now topical is Bradford's study therein of 480BC developments in close-quarters weapons, because 20th century former cavalry colonel Allan Mallinson's 1790s-1830s novels surely provide ample evidence for the versatile sabre to be reintroduced in today's British Army in Afghanistan!
The 1962 film remains an oft-viewed treasure to me, while the 2007 Blu-ray DVD monstrosity is destined for the next charity bag. If the film makers want something also stupendous to work on, I suggest they accurately study the colossal Sea Battle of Salamis, with the fleets of Greece and Persia confined to narrow waters, with bloody fighting across the decks of all the ships jammed tightly together. There is far too much sheer magic in true or as near as possible true history for its needing to be fantasised.
Alan H Dale.
300 :)
2009-11-27 - I absolutely love this movie. This is by far the best adaptation of one of Frank Miller's graphic novels. I highly recommend this movie to anyone that enjoys a good war movie or something historical-related. One word of caution on the history though, keep in mind that while the general history is preserved in tact this is an adaptation of a GRAPHIC NOVEL, so it is not going to be completely accurate as it is going to have elements of fantasy, most of which is symbolic not historic. In other words kids, don't base your history essay off the movie; although, there are some wonderful historical commentaries included on the disc which would be of use in a history class essay or research paper. Just don't forget to footnote.
A note on the blu-ray: The blu-ray is mostly absolutely fantastic. The movie was shot a little grainy at times on purpose (don't forget, it is supposed to be like watching a graphic novel), and this is most evident when David Wenham's character is relating the story of the movie to the Greek army on the eve of the battle at Plataea. In those scenes, the graininess is almost a little too distracting. Other than that, the blu-ray looks magical.
