Movie Review: 300

Today, hubby and I went to go see 300. As I didn't know much about the movie, here are some impressions that I had.

Things I liked:

• Lots of really buff half-naked men wearing what looked like black Speedos and red capes. What I noticed was a lot of the actors were in their late 30s and early 40s, so there was an impressive amount of man-meat to drool over.
• The CGI was awesome and very well done. If you can watch this movie in IMAX, do so. I heard that they spent about 6 weeks filming in front of blue screens and 1.5 years doing the CGI. They managed to blend the CG in with the real people very well, and it was visually quite stunning.
  
• David Wenham. I've now seen him in Lord of the Rings and Van Helsing, as well as 300, and he's really impressed with the range of his acting skills. And he looks hot half-naked in black Speedos. Ha.
• The battle scenes were very well done.
  

Things I thought they could have improved upon:

• The script. The movie had too many battle scenes. About halfway through the movie, I checked the time. That's always a bad sign for me. And the plot was not very well developed and certain times I had to ask myself, why they did that with the plot, it did nothing to the storyline. Or something went over my head.
• Gerard Butler's accent. Don't get me wrong, I love Gerard Butler's accent, and he was very drool worthy flinging his half-naked body across the screen, and my beef isn't with him, it's with the director. Gerard Butler is Scottish, but I noted that pretty much everyone else spoke with a British accent in the movie. It may not be a big deal to some but I picked up on it and it grated on my nerves. Even David Wenham, whose Australian, managed a British accent. I suppose a part of this rant came from last night, when I watched most of Beowulf & Grendel on TV. That movie wasn't spectacular, and I was a bit disappointed as I really was looking forward to watching it. Not only did Gerard Butler's Scottish accent appear when everyone else had put on a British accent, but even worse, they allowed Sarah Polley, whom I love as an actress, to use her native Canadian accent. Another good example is The Phantom of the Opera, yet another Gerard Butler movie, where Christine and Raoul were very good, the actors were allowed to use their natural American accents, while the rest of the cast used English accents. I found this really jarring and it made me enjoy the movie less. Gerard Butler was very good in this role, and I think he made me fall in love with The Phantom all over again. My main rant is, unless the story allows for varying accents, please be consistent with the accents, as having conflicting accents when you're not expecting it really diminishes the over all effect that you're trying to make. It's the director's choice for doing stuff like this, not the actors, so I blame them.
  
• Lena Headey, who plays the Queen, slouches. I've picked on people in the past who slouches because I have really bad upper back problems due to computer work, so I suppose I'm hypersensitive to stuff like this.

So all in all, I give the movie 7 out of 10. The generous marks go to the awesome CGI work and the half-naked men.