I just got back from watching Frank Miller’s 300 at the theater. The movie was based on the graphic novel 300 that was written and drawn by Frank Miller and painted by Lynn Varley and was published by Dark Horse comics as a five-issue mini series.
The story of 300 is loosely based on the event leading to the Greco-Persian War, where the Spartan King Leonidas I led his army of 300 Spartan soldiers and 6700 allies to hold pass of Thermopylae against the Persian army.
The very thing that I really love about Frank Miller’s drawings is the fact that his style isn’t conventional. His art isn’t common. He is his own.
How he lays out his panels is simply cinematic. This is the reason why it translates so perfectly into the big screen. Find a director that has the respect and loyalty to the original work that Frank Miller does to his every graphic novel, and you get yourself a very fucking awesome visual spectacle. This was proven by Robert Rodriguez when he made Frank Miller’s Sin City, and it has been proven again by the director of 300, Zack Snyder. Of course, it does help when you got the man himself backing you up.
The acting is topnotch, in my opinion. Gerard Butler really impress me as an actor. He is a character actor, because he can become whatever character he plays, and not be Gerard Butler playing as … . And, of course, I might as well mention the beautiful Lena Headey for portraying an enigmatic and strong Gorgo. A strong, powerful woman. A spartan woman. Now that should be something all young women should aspire to become, and not something like a skinny, idiotic Paris Hilton.
When asked by a woman from Attica, ‘Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?, she [Gorgo] said: ‘Because we are also the only ones who give birth to men.‘
Words to live by.
I recommend this film to anyone who is a fan of the comic book genre, or to anyone who hasn’t even heard of Frank Miller.