Three Stars

"300" could be viewed as a mixture of "Gladiator," "Troy" and "Braveheart" as conceived by Sam Peckinpah and digitally realized by George Lucas. Or, on a much simpler level, "300" could simply be described as an example of style over substance.

Whichever perspective one takes from viewing "300," there is one thing that will hold true: "300" is a visceral cinematic experience unlike any other film that is currently playing.

The film is set in 480 B.C., when Western civilization was being defined by the Greeks. The Athenians were the poets and philosophers, while the Spartans were the warriors and defenders of the realm.

To the East, King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his hordes were laying waste to Asia in establishing the Persian Empire. Obviously, the lush lands and great wealth of the Greeks prove to be too great a temptation for Xerxes to ignore.

The Spartans, however, were bred to be warriors from birth, loyal to Sparta to their own death. No one personified this ideal more than Sparta's own King Leonidas (Gerard Butler).

Handcuffed by political squabblings within Sparta's Senate, Leonidas elects to circumvent protocol in his effort to save Sparta from the coming onslaught of Persians. Assembling a volunteer militia of 300 of Sparta's fiercest warriors, Leonidas sets off for Thermopylae on a suicidal venture that will determine the future of the Hellenic world to exist as a free nation or as an enslaved one.

"300" is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name, which, itself ,was based on a 1962 movie titled "The 300 Spartans."

Any similarity between "300" and this earlier film is entirely coincidental.

That is because director Zach Snyder truly has unleashed "the dogs of war" in bringing this story to the screen. Like Robert Rodriquez' adaptation of Miller's "Sin City" last year, Snyder attempts to reproduce the graphic novel's visual scenes for his cinematic recreation.

Consequently, "300" is defined by the digital effects used to create the film and the ferocity of its violence to color it.

Therefore, unlike "Sin City", "300's" computer generated effects (only the actors are real) don't create a pop-art, comic-book effect as much as they manifest a surreal dream world that is equal parts recognizable and foreign. Muted colors come and go through scenes that are framed in various shades of sepia.

The only constant color in "300" is red, to highlight the constant torrents of blood that is spilled.

Red also shades the seething passion and fury that lies beneath the surface of every Spartan man and, as is the case with Leonidas' Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), woman.

Yet for all of its passion, testosterone, bloodletting and spectacular visuals, there is a strange dichotomy to "300." For at the film's end, what should be a stirring and uplifting conclusion instead is one that serves to leave the viewer cold.

Despite the film's visual brilliance and some hard-edged performances by the likes of Butler and Headey, "300's" greatest shortcoming is that one feels no sense of tragedy or triumph over the valiant but doomed stand Leonidas and his forces were martyred for.

Thus, any depth associated with "300" is all in its film making techniques.

"300" then becomes not so much a tale of inspiration as it does a film school graduate project, one that's a rowdy piece of brain candy that goes very well with a bucket of theatre popcorn.