Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I went and saw 300 this weekend. This tasteful still from the trailer nicely summarizes the plot and visuals of the movie. It would be better titled as 1800 Abs.

UPDATE: Wow, you people sure do like abs! Here’s a wallpaper of them for your trouble.

Predictably, Slate loses its mind over something it shouldn’t take very seriously. Ever since X-Men 2, critics have mistakenly believed that movies based on comic books need to mean something. The Slate review blasts the film for everything from making light of war with the Middle East to eugenics to being anti-gay. Please. This movie isn’t anti-gay. In fact, it’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen.

King Leonides and the other 299 perfectly sculpted Spartans spend the entire movie in nothing but leather briefs and fabulous red capes. Here what should be bronze armor is bronze skin. Artistic? Metaphorical? Maybe, but probably just gay.

And who are the crimson-clad spokesmen for Bowflex fighting against? The evil King Xerxes, who, with his gold piercings, bald head, and gold-shaded eyelids, evokes not so much the image of a god-king as he does an eight foot tall demonic RuPaul. Xerxes, when not overseeing an army of freaks and weirdos gathered from across the Persian empire, oversees an orgy of freaks and weirdos in his personal Fun Tent. This epic battle between the hotties of Sparta and the transsexuals of Persia takes place at a location called, and this is true, the Hot Gates.

It’s way, way too easy to poke fun at 300 for being, well, super gay. I walked into the theater determined not to sweat these details, and focused instead on what I expected to like about the movie. The action is good, though I wish there was more of it. 300 is weighed down by an unnecessary and awkward subplot about political betrayal on the home front. Visually, I have to give the film mixed marks. Things are a little too monochromatic. The battle of Thermopylae centers around bronze Spartans fighting under a bronze sky in a bronze land. Again, there’s a metaphor in there somewhere, and those fabulous red capes do look extra fabulous against all the taupe, but after a while the image gets a little repetitive. Visually, this movie has the unfortunate task of trying to live up to Sin City’s precedent, and when all is said and done, it’s just not as optically creative.

At the very least, if you like pecs and abs then this is definitely the movie to see. It’s got more muscle per square inch than any other film ever produced, and I’m including the movies you can only buy behind the curtain of the video store. Even during those ponderous scenes in the senate, there’s guards standing around in the background, just being shirtless and sculpted. The violent action is about as good as you could hope, and at times sort of beautiful. Don’t waste time drawing tenuous parallels to the war in Iraq, homophobia, or Nietzsche. If you’re going to see it, just enjoy it for what it is. A super gay action movie.