3.12.2007
It Seems "300" Did Pretty Well
Newsarama reports that the film "300", based on the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, has broken box-office records in its opening weekend.
Gerard Butler as King Leonidas
"On Friday, those with their eyes on such things knew something was up. Online movie ticket site Fandango.com was reporting that 92% of all online ticket sales for the coming weekend were for the film adaptation of Frank Miller's 300. And then - the film brought in $27.7 million on Friday. When it was all said and done, the film, directed by Zack Snyder had laid waste to the competition, bringing in an estimated $70 million, making it the biggest opening weekend for a film in March since records had been kept. In Spartan fashion, the film made more than the nine other films in the top ten, combined. The film also came in as the 3rd largest R-rated opening of all time, and the fifth best debut for a film based on a comic book. The movie opened both in regular theaters and IMAX theaters, bringing in $22,567 per traditional theater and $55,000 per IMAX screen (62, total)."
Those felt that the fate of "swords and sandals" epics rested on the success of this film can now breathe a bit easier. All that is left now is for Warner Bros. to count the money (the production budget was 65 million), and for the critics to hash out what the relevance of this film is.
In general, criticism of the film seems pretty split (it just barely squeaked out a "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Some admire the unique look and feel of the film (it was mostly shot against bluescreen), while others were troubled by what the political "message" (intentional or not) of the film was.
"But what's maddening about 300 is that no one involved - not Miller, not Snyder, not one of the army of screenwriters, art directors, and tech wizards who mounted this empty, gorgeous spectacle - seems to have noticed that we're in the middle of an actual war. With actual Persians (or at least denizens of that vast swath of land once occupied by the Persian empire)... One of the few war movies I've seen in the past two decades that doesn't include at least some nod in the direction of antiwar sentiment, 300 is a mythic ode to righteous bellicosity."
Other reviewers brush aside such critiques as attempts to read too much into the imagery of the film (based on a comic book that was written before our current "war with Persia").
"The first person who uses any aspect of this flick to justify the American debacle in Iraq is getting a swat across the nose with a copy of My Pet Goat. Which King Leonides of Sparta does not sit reading while his country is threatened and attacked. And if that's not enough, I point to the villains here: politicians who are in it for the money, a tyrant who thinks he's doing the work of a god (even if that god is himself), and priests whose advice and counsel can be bought. King Leonides of Sparta holds those priests (and their crazy-ass religion) in disdain, actually, and does not invite them to the White House -- er, palace. Oh, and Sparta is the invadee, not the invader."
Writer Frank Miller, while personally pro-war, rejects any attempts to twist his film as some sort of pro-Iraq-war epic.
"I see a lot of that on both sides of the political front these days - taking whatever facts are out there and screwing up the language to make it fit a preconceived notion...I don't think anyone would mistake my Xerxes for Osama bin Laden."
While technically a "pagan" film (or at least a film full of pagans), the issue of religion hasn't come up much in discussions of the film (not entirely surprising considering the action-packed nature of the story), and has even won the blessings of Christianity Today's film reviewer. So I think its a safe bet that we can see more ancient Greco-Roman action on the big screen in the future (including a possible sequel to "300"). Lets just hope the quality of these future films surpass "Troy" and "Alexander".
2.13.2007
Greco-Roman Fantasy
Salon.com reviewer Gary Kamiya analyzes (and praises) the sweeping historical cable television drama "Rome". The show, now in its second (and last) season, is playing out the rise of Octavian (Augustus) the first Emperor of Rome. Kamiya seems especially impressed with the boldly un-Christian woldview of the show.
"'Rome' is based on solid historical research. But what makes it draw imaginative blood is the fact that it's uncensored scholarship, audacious history. "Rome" is incredibly entertaining, while also being incredibly shocking. It's history porn. It dares to depict an alien worldview, one untouched by Christianity and the moral ethos introduced by that strange little sect. Perhaps those Catholic watchdog groups should stop worrying about heretical fluff like "The Da Vinci Code" and pay more attention to 'Rome.'"
Kamiya also favorably compares "Rome" to the BBC series "I, Claudius" and declares it the better work of the two.
"The key here is "graphic." This is where "Rome" separates itself from such earlier efforts as the superb BBC series "I, Claudius." A highly intelligent work, "I, Claudius" might in certain ways be superior to "Rome" -- its intrigues are more exquisitely intricate, and it avoids certain melodramatic narrative clichés. But it cannot match the way the new series violently immerses the viewer in history. Based on Robert Graves' novels, "I, Claudius" is essentially a work of theater, not film; it uses language, not action or setting, to pull in the viewer. It is a subtler approach to history, brilliant in its own way, but it does not succeed like "Rome" in truly evoking the past in all its radical and banal otherness."
But while "Rome" is winning accolades on cable television, according to some, the "swords and sandals" epic films in theaters are in trouble and the upcoming film "300" is the last chance to save the genre from slipping back into obscurity.
"Hollywood is pinning hopes on 300 to rediscover the kind of success enjoyed by Ridley Scott's Oscar-winning Gladiator in 2000. Since then the ancient epic has suffered setbacks with Troy, starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom, which was derided by critics as a travesty of Homer, and Alexander, with a bleached-blond Colin Farrell, which flopped at the box office and earned director Oliver Stone some of his worst reviews. Both films were made by Warner Brothers, as is 300. Another turkey could destroy studios' willingness to invest in the genre, just as in 1963 when the Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor version of Cleopatra killed such productions for decades."
300's ultra-stylized version of the Battle of Thermopylae seems to be winning over advance test audiences, so it looks like this won't be the last film to venture into our ancient Greco-Roman (pagan) past.
