There was a fair amount of criticism when this film was released. Too much violence perhaps, too much racism. Wait…racism. I’m sorry but somehow a fantasy film based on a graphic novel based on a myth based on a true event seems like a difficult place to insert racism. How about the assertion that this reflects the United States and Iraq? I actually laughed and threw up a bit in my mouth when I heard that one. Let us take a step back and see why many of these ideas are filled with hot air.

First of all, the story itself is told through the eyes of Stelios (Michael Fassbender) after being sent by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) back to Sparta. This creates the aura of myth to 300. Stelios is not necessarily telling the perfect truth, instead he is telling the perfect story. This type of storytelling harkens back to The Iliad and The Odyssey, where real events become myths where gods deal in the work of men. Most of the criticism of the film lacks weight when placed in this context. We are sitting down to hear a myth; and like many myths, this one was overdone, But in a good way.

The violence is over the top, but this is Sparta and again; a story. “Of course we beat up 3,000 guys with death masks”, instead of “well they were farmers but they had a few pitchforks.” The violence makes sense in terms of the time period and in terms of the myth-making that is taking place. The other guys have to be bigger, faster, and stronger to make the story. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is larger than life, much like that really big guy that mugged me. Seriously, the point is that you have a very specific viewpoint from which the narrative is presented. This explains the levels of debauchery we see from the Persians. They are the enemy, and in order to rally the troops they must be viewed as vile. This type of brainwashing happens whenever wars take place.

One part that I did find a bit out of place was the subplot with Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey). It seemed to take away from the pacing a bit, until the kill. Again, over the top but this is Sparta. Women of Sparta were tougher than the rest of the men in Greece. Even though Queen Gorgo was portrayed in a manner befitting a queen, I actually started to believe that she was written in to add eye candy.

300 was not the best film of the year, but it certainly was a fun film to watch. I was impressed with the way in which the visuals matched the graphic novel. I was also impressed that the film went for it. Keep in the violence and keep it the myth is was made to be. You know, I never even mentioned the awesome cinematography. That’s what happens when the story is good, the film just works. I really think this is a modern myth, one that will be told again and again. However, I am still not sure if the underdog aspect can convince me that the Raiders will win more than 5 games this year. For Oakland, may we lose in glory!

The strength of the film is also its major shortcoming: character development. I think everyone is so familiar with the backgrounds of many of the characters that we have a sense of who these heroes should be, but Marvel takes things a step further with the Ultimates line and gives us the mature version of each hero. One thing that I was waiting to see develop was the relationship between Giant Man/Hank Pym and Janet Pym/The Wasp, which in the comic was very mature ending in a great little scene of Captain America taking Hank to task for what he did to Janet. Although this did not appear in the film, they hint at future problems and even give us a hint at tackling this interaction in a preview to Ultimate Avengers 2. If you know the characters already, you really are only looking for the mature tweaks in their handling. But if you have never encountered these particular heroes, you will probably find yourself wanting more character development.

The plot is very stripped down compared to the comic (of course), but still held my interest. It does move fairly fast with tons of action, which means that we have the typical back story straight into alien throw downs. I was hoping for more, but their was enough nuance to the story (the relationship between Betty and Bruce, Caps visit to Bucky) that I could see that they were trying to give me more but were somewhat restrained by the shortness of the film. At least they tried.

After I was finished watching this, I immediately began thinking about the next one, just like if I had just finished a comic. I think that speaks volumes for the potential of the Marvel animated film. If you are a comic book fan, this film will at least be tolerable. Perhaps not good, but at least it feels like an effort was made (cough cough…Ben Affleck as Daredevil). If you are new to the Ultimate line, you may find yourself very lost, just take your time and don’t dwell on the lack of character development. The next film should at least fill in some of the gaps and perhaps cement the possibilities of the mature line of animation from Marvel.