In 480 B.C., a time when reason and mysticism battled for supremacy, 300 Spartan warriors under the command of King Leonidas stood at the very gates of their lands and fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive one-million man strong Persian army. Though their blood, sweat, toil, tears and destruction this small band of soldiers would inspire all of Greece to unite, drawing a line for democracy still celebrated to this very day.

The realities behind this tale are ones for debate by historians, but under the pen of famed graphic novelist Frank Miller (Batman: Year One) this saga becomes a mythical story of blood-soaked inspiration the likes of which could make even Shakespeare or Homer smile in appreciation. It is a drama filled with the pathos of seventeen epic adventures, all of it framed against the backdrop of a world on the brink of moving from the realm of the fantastical and into the modern age of thought and intellectual reason.

Adapting Miller and co-writer Lynn Varley’s book for the big screen, Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder has crafted something with 300 the likes of which I have never seen before. His film is a parade of homoerotic mayhem and orgiastic violence, an aria of visual audacity and kinetic motion virtually impossible for the human eye to resist. This feature glued me to my seat, refused to let me go, the windswept plains of ancient war as robust an as entertaining as any I am likely to see this or any other year.

Yet, and I am almost loathe to admit this, I could not help but want more than what the movie delivered. While Snyder has achieved an experience altogether new and magnificent, the emotional core has unfortunately been dulled to a soft point. Spartan spears shatter bone, break necks and cause blood to spurt like Jackson Pollack blobs thrown against an empty canvass, the men who fearlessly hold them remain frustrating one-dimensional enigmas. We do not know them and thus we do not feel their pain, the filmmakers never getting far enough inside Leonidas’ (vigorously played by Gerard Butler) head – or his heat – far us to ever fully embrace either him or his cause.

In this way, 300 suffers from many of the same flaws that afflicted Robert Rodriguez’s Miller adaptation Sin City. Like that, this one is all surface, all attitude, all gloss, Snyder more interested in attaining the right beefy tone than he is at finding any sort of emotive depth. His obsession was to craft a one of a kind visual marvel (and as such he has succeeded brilliantly), the sights and sounds of Sparta and its zest for warfare more important than trying to ascertain why an honored soldier picks up his spear in the first place.

Thankfully, unlike Sin City these problems don’t weigh the picture down completely. There is an energy, a pounding rhythmic intensity, to all this that is impossible to shake. The evil Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), beauteous Queen Gorgo (a sublime Lena Headey), wordsmith soldier Dilios (David Wenham), duplicitous politician Theron (Dominic West) and the stalwart Captain (Vincent Regan) may all be as big enigmas at the end as they were at the start, the passion in the portrayals is so strong forgive me if I just don’t care.

Of course, this means Snyder’s opus does tend to defy normal film criticism. This is pure style over anything remotely substantive, visual razzle-dazzle trumping all things coming close to poignant rapture. The director has fashioned an entertainment; so well edited by William Hoy (Fantastic Four), realized by production designer James Bissell (Good Night, and Good Luck.), scored by composer Tyler Bates (Slither), visualized by effects supervisor Chris Watts (The Fog) and certainly splendidly shot by cinematographer Larry Fong (ABC’s Lost); that frame-by-frame absolutely blows the mind. The whole thing is a sensory cavalcade of sound and fury, so all-encompassing I’ll still be sifting through its many layers for many days to come.

Somehow, someway, all this ends up being enough. While I’d be lying if I said I did not want more, I’d be just as false if I failed to admit having such a grandly enjoyable time. Snyder and Miller wrap us up within their story’s coils right from the very fist frame, refusing to let go even long after an army of Grecian soldiers finally deigns to take the field of battle and commemorate the Spartan’s honorable sacrifice. 300 is a bruising, battering, visually resplendent caterwaul of an action adventure, and I imagine the fighting men and women it celebrates probably wouldn’t have had their story told any other way.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)