300 (15)

The Battle of Thermopylae is one of the great military achievements.

In 480BC, a band of 300 Spartan soldiers held off a force of many hundreds of thousands of Persians and changed the course of history.

The Spartans were slaughtered to a man, but their heroism inspired the whole of ancient Greece to set aside traditional rivalries and unite to ultimately defeat the Persians. If they hadn't, we might all be Iranian by now.

This story has already inspired one film, The 300 Spartans, a cheesy guilty pleasure starring Richard Egan; a superb historical novel, Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield; and a startling graphic novel by Frank Miller.

It is this work, from the man behind Sin City, that serves as the inspiration for this vigorous and extremely bloody historical epic.

Gerard Butler is Leonidas, king of Sparta, who defies the ruling council and takes 300 of his finest soldiers to face the Persian army of the God-king Xerxes.

He reasons if he can pick his ground and fight at Thermopylae, an almost impassably narrow gorge, then the weight of numbers will not count. Meanwhile, his queen, Lena Headey, stays at home trying to convince the council and Leonidas's political rival, Dominic West, to send much needed reinforcements before her husband and his troops are killed.

There is no doubt Zack Snyder's film is visually impressive. He has taken the technology used for Sin City and gone one step further to create vast virtual armies fighting in computer-generated combat. Looking at the impressive visuals you would not believe most of the film was shot in a Montreal warehouse.

But the close-up stuff is real enough and, with a pounding hard-rock soundtrack and blood flying in every direction, Snyder has created what looks like the world's gayest video game – 300 men, stripped, oiled, and wearing not much but capes and codpieces. What are we supposed to think?

Eventually, this all becomes wearying and by starting the battle more than an hour before the end of the film Snyder paints himself into a corner. As one force after another is despatched by the Spartans their opponents become more and more grotesque and the film becomes more relentlessly monotonous.

At one point they appear to be fighting mutant giants. No matter how cleverly it is done, this is bound to get repetitive and, for all its visual trickery, 300 does sag under the weight of the relentless combat. This is a film that desperately needs some subtlety.

The endless macho posturing becomes tiresome too. 'Lost an eye?' says Leonidas to one of his trusty lieutenants. 'Not to worry, the gods saw fit to give me a spare, my king!' replies the half-blind warrior. However, credit where it is due, Snyder has finally found the perfect role for Gerard Butler.

He is by no means the greatest actor in the world, but at his best Butler has an almost feral presence that is perfect for Leonidas. Given the ideal showcase, he delivers a performance of tremendous ferocity that commands your attention and rises above all the computer trickery surrounding it.