When I originally wrote this, I stopped short of saying that Hitler would have loved this movie–the fact is, it’s too silly and cartoonish to take seriously the subtexts that are implied. The device of constructing most of the film as a campfire story told by an unreliable narrator exonerates this as well—the biases given in the story align perfectly with the biases we might presume of a Spartan soldier.

But the characters were still one-dimensional caricatures, and 300 (despite trying as hard as it can) still stops short of epic.

The primary redeeming characteristics of 300 are the visual element (unlike most comic book adaptations, and like Sin City, it clearly retains the non-realistic visual style of the original work) and the battle scenes (which were perfectly balanced—visceral enough to seem real, but idealized enough to be more exciting than disgusting). The acting is poor and the writing is questionable but given those less-than-perfect elements, they clearly made the most out of what they had.