300- "...overblown with hyperbole"

"This film shows us why they did not let Robert E. Howard write history books and why they did not allow Frank Frazetta to illustrate them."

With that witty, sarcastic line, Mark R. Leeper begins his brutal disection of the film 300. Indeed 300 is a manifesto of the macho/action slasher film genre. The movie tells the gory story of 300 Spartan soldiers fighting the giant Persian army in the famous Battle of Thermopylae.

Leeper quickly sounds off on the movie's flaws. He does not like the acting, the story, or the fan-acclaimed visual work. Despite the enormous amount of hyped up advertising and visual graphic work that went into this film production, Leeper is not convinced that 300 is a worth while film. "The visual images are done sloppily so that they do not make sense" says Leeper.

Aside from that, Leeper also questions the historical accuracy of the film, saying, "I do not remember anybody in history ever using a rhinoceros in battle...", referring to the portrayal of Persian King, Xerxes, sending rhinos and elephants into battle.

Finally, Leeper also takes an issue with the film's "amateurish" script, which he claims resembles scripts from movies such as Goldfinger. All things considered, it is safe to assume that Leeper thinks quite low of 300, and thus it is easy to see why it received only a 6/10 rating in his review.