Review: 300

Director : Zack Snyder
Main Cast : Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham

I’ve read some nerds on the net ranting about how 300 exaggerated things and did not depict what really happened 2500 years ago. Thing is, I DON’T CARE. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a fictionalized tale based on a comic, and I treat 300 no different than Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings.



So anyway, 300 is yet another Frank Miller comic/graphic that has been converted to the big screen. Really loved and enjoyed the last two, Batman Begins and Sin City. And like Sin City, 300 was filmed entirely against green screen, with the background in every scene added digitally. Also like Sin City, the director went out to replicate the look and feel of the source material. It was a real visual treat, with scorched out bronze/brown the main theme - the contrast slider gleefully pushed all the way to the right - and dabs of bright crimson for the blood.

And man, was there a lot of blood. This is violence at its glorious, arty-farty best. Other films may rush through the really bloody scenes, leaving the worst to our imagination. Not 300 though. Every single thrust of the spear, every single limb cut off, is shown in slow-motion. It really is a film for the boys, a genre action film where instead of having one-man-armies such as Rambo or Conan, here we have a whole troop of them, with more six-packs on show than in your local 7-Eleven. So much so that the sub-plot involving the Queen and the Senate back home proved an annoying distraction, something that the director wrongly decided would give the film more character.

So is the film any good then? Well, it’s got great visuals and probably the best sword-and-sandal battle scenes ever – some of the specific scenes would undoubtedly be parodied in the likes of Shrek for years to come. However, I really feel sorry to say that it’s all just a bit too much style over substance. Not enough time was spent developing the main characters, to the point that we didn’t really care when they all eventually perished. And it all felt a little bit too similar to Gladiator, especially the scenes in the barley field with the haunting soundtrack. Gerald Butler, last seen singing his lungs out in Phantom Of The Opera, did a passable if hysteric impression of Russell Crowe. But then, 300 never set out to be a critically acclaimed film. It set out to thrill, to excite, to entertain. And entertain it certainly did. Just do me a favour and catch it in its full glory at the cinema while you can, rather than a bad copy downloaded off the internet on your laptop.

Review: Apocalypto

Director : Mel Gibson
Main Cast : Rudy Youngblood, Jonathan Brewer

Mel Gibson's latest is a beautiful, kinetic, edge-of-your-seat, harrowing and gruesome tale set during the last days of the Mayan empire, cast entirely by locals speaking the ancient language (with subtitles of course).



Though the opening scene ends with the gory killing of a tapir for food, the next 20 minutes shows the humanity, love and laughter of the people in the small village, showing they are just like any other people in any civilisation or time, despite their very agressive and scary appearances. Until disaster strikes, that is. In the most harrowing and grim scenes I have seen since Hotel Rwanda, a rival group of tribesmen invade the village, brutally murdering half the villagers, and tying up the rest and forcing them on a long trek through the jungle.

Much has been said about the violence in Apocalypto, and though it is quite gory in parts, most of the really terrible stuff happens off-screen. But then, I've been used to a diet of B-Grade slasher and horror flicks, and I've seen much worse.

So is Apocalypto a fictionalised documentary of the Mayan empire? Does it, as the name suggests, discuss the reasons behind the fall of one of the greatest ancient civilisations? Well, not really. Take away the loincloths, spears and rainforest, and Apocalpyto is your typical action flick. And a very good one too.

Review: The Number 23

Director : Joel Schumacher
Main Cast : Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen

Actually the number 23 itself has personal meaning for me. I was born on 2nd March (2/3), and the number of letters in my full name (Mohammad Ozairi bin Othman)? You guessed it right - 23. That fact, an intriguing teaser trailer, and the involvement of one of my favourite actors made me look really forward to watching the film.



Sadly, all the hype, all the excitement came to nothing. The Number 23 aspires to be one of those much-discussed about films of mystery and mystique. But the end result falls as flat as a burnt piece of roti canai. Jim Carrey does his best to play a man slowly losing his sanity while burying himself ever more deeper in his obsession with the cursed prime number. For you anti-Carrey people out there, this is him in his "serious-pity-him-loser" mode, similar to his role in the great Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. For a truly magnificent piece of acting in a similar role though, you can't beat Richard Dreyfuss' in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.

Agent Dana Scully look-a-like Virginia Madsen is passable as his supporting wife, though The Number 23 essentially hangs on the strength of Jim Carrey, being present in almost every scene.

The Number 23 does not have much substance in plot, and relies on unnecessary stretching of "flashback" scenes and Da Vinci Code style step-by-step explanations to the viewers to pad out the film to its measly 96 minutes, a movie length usually reserved for cartoons that serve ADD-suffering 6 year olds. Oddly, it still felt too long - by 23 minutes, I might guess.