300

Un film visuellement remarquable qui se distingue avant tout par sa forme. Il en ressort un long conte historique et d’action vidéoclipisé avec plein de combats, de cris et de discours héroïques. Gerard Butler me plaisait déjà dans P.S. I Love You, Lena Headey a un visage de reine ; il y a juste Xerxès qui ressemblait à un travesti se livrant à des jeux sadomasochistes. Mon évaluation oscille entre trois et quatre étoiles, mais vu que j'ai choisi de regarder 300 un samedi après-midi pluvieux, je pense opter pour la note la plus élevée. (23/05/2009)

Ups. Aucun épopée méga ne se déroule. 300 est une modeste expérience basée sur un scénario de 10 pages avec de jolis arrière-plans en écran bleu. Les dialogues se font paraître si sérieux et cool qu'ils prêtent à sourire. L'histoire recycle ce que nous ont déjà dit Braveheart et Gladiator, mais de manière résumée et en se concentrant uniquement sur l'aspect visuel. C'est agréable à regarder, les scènes de combat sont bien réalisées, mais tout le reste est insignifiant. Sans les scènes au ralenti, cela aurait à peine duré 60 minutes. C'est un bon divertissement, mais j'espère que cela ne préfigure pas le début d'un nouveau sous-genre cinématographique. (13/03/2007)

Snyder is here to entertain! An elegant recycler of the classic sandal adventure and heroic epic wrapped in a beautifully re-styled audiovisual package that has very little to do with history itself, and the search for historical context can hardly be called viewer ignorance. The vast majority of current productions are in the same boat, so why nitpick here when it's clear from the start that the pathetic phrase will be part of every Leonidas (Gerard Butler, the most charismatic leader of the screen a few years back, scores points!) monologue, the purely macho speech of every dialogue, and that the battle will be nothing but visual gluttony of the finest quality? I enjoyed 300 for its relative originality, down to the last drop of digitally redacted blood the characters shed, and I’m certainly not worried about the future of other Hollywood productions. There have already been several similar booms, and in a few years, young angry teens will find their new cult. It is rather surprising how many people, after seeing 300, suddenly crave pure awesomeness, which has survived (and will survive) everything. (29/04/2007)

I really like Zack Snyder for Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead (and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and Suckerpunch look very promising, too), but 300 is unfortunately a very big misstep. A visually fancy historical carnage (a bit too digital and artificial for my taste) that to it’s own chagrin takes itself way too seriously. Gerard Butler is one of the least likeable actors and his heroic speeches almost made me burst out laughing. This is not Sparta, this is a bad joke. (12/09/2010)

I would like to paraphrase a sentence uttered in the film itself: "My eyes saw a grotesque spectacle summoned from the darkest corners of Miller's strange soul." The rape of history under the guise of a comic adaptation (under which everything is tolerated nowadays, perhaps even if someone made Němcová's Grandmother a dominatrix in a S&M parlour), the fanatically stubborn (though undeniably charismatic) Leonidas, who reminded me of another fanatic, Hoferik from Signum Laudis, so I certainly wouldn't want him as a king, and the slow-motion shots in the second half with their increasing frequency bored me to death. If, given the high box office returns, this empty and narcissistic affair will set the course for the future of the film industry, then we have no choice but to shout "Gott mit uns!" I'm not sure if sentences like "...I felt like smashing someone's face in after the movie was over..." is the right emotion to take away from a film, but I have no doubt that for angry young teens, this will be the best movie of their short lives so far :) (07/04/2007)