Entertainment, Movies - Army Times

Ultimate warriors

Comic book geeks, action movie fans, history buffs and anyone who has ever had anything to do with the profession of arms will bliss out on “300,” a dazzling recounting of the famed battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

Oh, you were napping in the back row when your high school history class covered that one?

Well, you won’t be snoozing when King Leonidas of Sparta bellows at his 299 comrades, “Tonight, we dine ... IN HELL!” and they all give him a fist-pumping Spartan version of “OOH-RAH!” before turning to stand shoulder to shoulder against the vast advancing army of the Persian tyrant Xerxes.

“300” is the second adaptation of a graphic novel by comics legend Frank Miller, and if you thought “Sin City” was a cool rush, get set for the next leap in CGI artistry. The aesthetics of the comics medium has never been so faithfully, beautifully transferred to film as it is here.

Director Zack Snyder, who also co-wrote the script with Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon, combines dizzying choreography, stunning 3-D artwork and countless cutting-edge digital effects to create a world that’s wholly recognizable but just a few intense degrees beyond real.

Of course, all the technology in the world counts for nothing if you don’t have a juicy story. Good thing this one’s positively dripping. And if the film takes a little license with the historical record, well, the details of that record are just fuzzy enough to allow it.

A prologue introduces the Greek city-state of Sparta. In contrast to the “philosophers and boy-lovers” in arch-rival Athens, Sparta is among the most fanatically militaristic cultures in history, where selective breeding produces only the strongest offspring, who are trained from birth to fight with no thought of retreat or surrender.

Then we meet King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) as he is visited by emissaries of the Persian army, who tell him Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is coming out of the east, and Sparta’s only choices are submission or death.

When Leonidas’ mate, the beautiful, satin-steel Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), tells them what to do with their choices, the Persians demand to know what makes this impudent woman think she can speak among men.

“Only Spartan women give birth to real men,” Gorgo fires back, just before Leonidas and his aides shove the Persians into a bottomless pit.

Leonidas first consults his most trusted adviser — his wife — who tells him simply to do what a free man would do. (This leads to a sex scene that is as erotic as any in recent memory without being the least bit gratuitous.)

Leonidas wants to lead the Spartan army against Xerxes and his hordes, but custom dictates he must first consult Sparta’s insular high priests and their Oracle, who live high on a windswept crag.

The priests say the Oracle has ruled out a military campaign — but they’re secretly in league with Theron (Dominic West), a corrupt member of the Spartan Council who has thrown in with Xerxes.

Leonidas skirts this political hurdle by simply deciding to “take a stroll” with 300 of his most ripped warriors as “bodyguards.”

His plan: engage the Persians at the Thermopylae pass, a narrow corridor between steep cliffs on the Aegean Sea known as the “Hot Gates,” which will nullify Xerxes’ manpower advantage. (History puts his army’s numbers at anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million).

And so we’re all set for one of the most storied clashes ever recorded. Xerxes, depicted here as a cross between Boy George and Mr. T, throws everything at the Spartans — slave warriors, bomb-throwing wizards, charging rhinos, stampeding elephants, a ninjalike elite guard known as the Immortals — all to no effect.

Xerxes gets a lesson in the secret of the Spartans’ legendary combat prowess: their insanely disciplined doctrine of fighting as a single multicelled organism.

These battle scenes simply suck the breath from your lungs, as Snyder shifts from real time to slow motion to stop-action and back again in split-second spans in a glorious ballet of mayhem and carnage.

Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Gorgo tries to get the council to unleash the army to join the fight, even as Theron — the kind of sneaky REMF who has always skulked around the home front for personal gain while the warriors bleed in the trenches — tries to thwart her at every turn.

Those who are up to speed on their ancient history know how it all turns out, but we’ll withhold further details for the young pups in the audience. Let’s just say that the Spartans’ tradition of honor, duty and glory reverberate from every frame of the film’s final scenes.

It all culminates in an ending that will raise the neck hairs and moisten the eyes of anyone who has ever felt that freedom and liberty are ideals worth defending — with the East vs. West theme sure to resonate strongly against the landscape of our own age.

A sensory feast from start to finish, “300” is larger-than-life storytelling that qualifies as the first true CGI-enhanced epic.

4 stars. Rated R for graphic violence, sexuality.

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