news reviews rants photos/pictures downloads writing blogs
login
Home

300

Score: 21/100

Score on a par with: The Wicker Man (2006) 20/100; Memoirs of a Geisha 25/100; King Kong (2005) 21/100; Nanny McPhee 21/100; Sahara 18/100; Constantine 21/100; The Phantom of the Opera 17/100; The Ladykillers (2004) 16/100; Cold Creek Manor 23/100; Scary Movie III 25/100; Paycheque 18/100; The Matrix Revolutions 17/100; Blackball 17/100; The Matrix Reinstalled 22/100; Daredevil 19/100; K-19 The Widowmaker 16/100; XXX 15/100; Austin Powers: Goldmember 25/100; Scary Movie II 16/100; The Hole 16/100; The Grinch 23/100

“I hope your scratch has not made you useless.”

“Hardly sir, it’s only an eye.”

Such Pythonesque dialogue fills this bizarrely fuzzy account of an army of three-hundred Sean Connery impersonators’ response to an attack mounted by Julian Clary’s multitude of masked cellists, who eventually win because the Hunchback of Notre Dame knows the ways of the goats.

If you look at this film as a subtle comment on the foreign policy of the United States it’s really quite clever, but I have a nasty feeling that any intelligence in it is accidental and it’s actually meant just to be about a lot of good strong Americans cutting-up a lot of faceless rag-heads – this doesn’t prevent it from being quite a deep film and it does stand up to some rigorous analysis. It really could be a metaphor for the American approach to the Middle East, but it is simultaneously absolutely hilarious.

Also, amusingly, for all its red-blooded machismo it comes across as outrageously camp (a lot like most American soldiers do). All it needed, really, were the few big musical numbers for which it was crying out and I would have no compunction at all against describing it as the greatest comedy ever made. I want to see it again, now.

Look I’m terribly sorry but I’m afraid we’re going to have to occupy your house.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

150

I got half way through before the boredom seized me... it seized me easily, my eyes had utterly glazed over so i didn't see it coming, it leapt at me and pushed me easily to the floor where i put up little resistance and made virutally no effort to defend myself...

utte arse, but it does make Sin City look good, but then not having seen Sin City makes Sin City look good, its the watching of Sin City that brings home its utter crapness...

Go afternoon sir, can i offer you a drugged up virgin to lick?

By Good Sir Johnny at Thu, 05/04/2007 - 18:38 | login to post comments

The 300 Effect

The effect of one very poor film making another very poor film look slightly better shall henceforth been known as The 300 Effect.

I think that if you'd have stuck with it until the end its cumulative awfulness would have done the same for you as it did me - it is awful until about halfway through, whereupon it all starts to seem like some fantastic joke and gets better and better . I did entertain an idea of leaving the cinema and ignoring the last half, but I had paid and so I was prevented by my deepest philosophies from leaving and in the end, as I said, it turned into what might be the greatest comedy ever made, with Xerses (the Julian Clary character) possibly the greatest comic character ever committed to celluloid.

It was hilarious and clever, both by accident, but I'm not sure if it actually matters that its brilliance was accidental and not at all in the vein they wanted it to be. It brilliantly lampoons just about everything which is wrong with the western world today, and for that I think it should be applauded. And for the bloke with knives for arms. And for the hunchback character. And for the delightfully simplistic metaphor of simply pushing the arabs into a big hole.

As for that drugged up virgin method of decision making, I think I'm going to adopt that myself. Example: should I walk or drive? Fetch the drugged up virgin for me to lick!

Yes.

Quite.

Anyway.

By Eddie the Gent at Fri, 06/04/2007 - 17:47 | login to post comments

hunchback tradgedy

Does he come back?

if it sort of rumple stiltskin thing?

he had just come one and said "Can i fight for you?"

"Errr.... No. Duh"

"Ohh!" and thrown his shield off a cliff and shouted a bit, butby this time i'd remembered that i you wet and finger and run it round a wine glass you can make a noise and was quite uttery preoccupied, thus, i could have missed something

By Good Sir Johnny at Sat, 07/04/2007 - 16:06 | login to post comments

Seducing the Hunchback

The Hunchback goes to Xerxes and tells him he knows the ways of the goats which will get him up the Spartans' back, erm, route. Xerxes thinks this is jolly good and rewards the hunchback with a lesbian montage. I can't remember for certain what happens to the hunchback, but I think it pretty likely that he dies a nasty death.

By Eddie the Gent at Sat, 07/04/2007 - 18:07 | login to post comments