Directed by Zack Snyder, the movie which is an adaptation of Frank Miller's book gives life to an important event in ancient greek's history.
In 480 B.C. during the Battle of Thermopylae the Persian King Xerxes planned to finish conquering all the lands he desired and that were within his reach. At that time, Sparta was already famous for having the best Greek army where the soldiers were trained since childhood fort his function. The Persian King gathered a vast arm and started his expansion campaign which left missing only the territories of Sparta and Athens.
When arriving in Sparta, King Xerxes sent messengers requesting King Leonidas to surrender the city to his power. With strong Spartan rules against submission, King Leonidas did not surrender and started preparing for battle. However, Sparta's government did not authorize the entire army to be sent to battle. To defend his lands then, King Leonidas took 300 warriors from Sparta plus slaves and other fighters to combat against Xerxes' army. Exact numbers could not be identified but it is estimated that 700 people were fighting with Leonidas against an army of approximately 1,000,000 people ruled by King Xerxes. The battle lasted for 3 intense days. After that... wait... lets stop here or else I'll spoil the movie.
The visual aspects of the movie are quite interesting with many special and visual effects to give an effect a comic book story like it was done in Sin City. The movie was almost entirely shot in Montreal, Canada.
I didn't like much the clothing chosen... By what I could research Spartan soldiers wore military clothes that covered and protected much of their body. In the movie the warriors pretty much didn't have any clothing.
The movie has 117 minutes in length and was screened in Brazil on March 30th. King Leonidas is played by Gerard Buttler and even our own Brazilian Rodrigo Santoro did the role of King Xerxes. Actually, I didn't even notive it was Rodrigo Santoro, in the movie he is bald and really tall.
Again, if you like war and bloody movies, this is a thumbs up for you, if not there are plenty of other options...
Check out some scenes: