300: DVD Review

Set in 5th Century B.C., the film follows the three-day Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 bellowing, muscle-bound Spartans got pumped up to rumble against a million Persians. It's something of an understatement to say that they were outnumbered, but as the movie sees it, they nevertheless were gifted soldiers aided considerably (or screwed considerably--you decide) by Sparta's King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), who led the fight and, as history tells us, lost it in a crimson rush of valor.

For a film filled with so many characters, there isn't one fully realized character in the mix--not Leonidas, who bellows from his bowels as if he just sat on the Hot Gates themselves; not the Persian emperor Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), who is one wig shy from becoming RuPaul; and not Leonidas' enemy Theron (Dominic West), whose evil fails to spark a half-cooked subplot involving Leonidas' wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey).

Adapted from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel.

Rated R. Grade: C-