My hopes for this movie were not very high; I mean, any movie that has blood as part of the logo is probably not going to be an Oscar contender. However, it's by director Zack Snyder whose remake of "Dawn of the Dead" was fun, and it's based on a decent graphic novel by Frank Miller. I figured it would, at least, be tolerable.

I should also mention that I attended with my boyfriend Scott, who's a wonderfully enthusiastic geek, and our mutual friend Lanny, who, besides being a great geek in his own right, also tends to agree with me on which leading men are hot. *grin*

300 turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, however. It's no 'Dawn of the Dead.'

The best part of this movie -- and Lanny and I agreed on this -- were the hot guys. If you like muscular half-naked men wearing loincloths and capes, the movie has them by the scores. Plus a few partially naked and very improbably perky women. My boyfriend probably appreciated the women more than Lanny and I did ...  so I guess it's fair to say this movie does have something in it for everyone!

Other than the *ahem* human scenery, however, '300' really doesn't have much going for it.

Lanny observed that the plot was narrower than the pass at Thermopylae. It really is limited and very basic -- the plot is good guys fighting an impossible battle, but determined to take out as many of the Persian army as they can.  Yep, that's about it. There was a minor sub plot with the queen and a nasty politician which contributed nothing to the story. If you're looking for plot rather than artistic hack-and-slash you won't find it here!

The characters were flat, one-dimensional, and had absolutely no development over the course of the movie. They didn't learn anything -- they didn't evolve, or change, or have any real flaws or weaknesses to make them human. They just were presented as stereotypes -- the brave king, the father who loses his son and the son who dies (and who I  knew was a red-shirt from the moment he appeared) the literally monstrous bad guys, the loyal queen, the cute kid. Etcetera. I didn't identify with any of them. There was very little internal conflict, as well. The good guys were cookie-cutter heroes, self-sacrificing and unquestioningly brave.

On the other hand, they were all pretty people, except for the monstrous bad guys -- who were truly and artistically nasty, in a "Boss Villain" video game sense. The handsome Spartans were quite yummy and are worth mentioning again. Nummmmmy!

The fight scenes were decently choreographed, if that's your cup of tea -- though they randomly employed a weird slow-motion effect. I would say that the computer animation overall was excellent -- while they didn't completely lose the "sound stage" feel this is a well-choreographed and artistic movie. If you like great fight scenes, you'll probably like "300."

Overall, '300' was not an unbearably horrible movie. It's bad, but it's bad with style -- it's the sort of awful movie that you can watch without getting bored, and then later rip apart with great glee. Which we did do, enthusiastically, the moment the credits started rolling. (And the credits got a few chuckles ... "Wait for it ... wait for it ... wait for it ... SPLAT!" -- and blood spatters the screen, repeatedly.)

Recommendations: This is the perfect movie to see with a pack of other geeks -- the laughter potential in making fun of it over dinner afterwards will make the price of admission worthwhile. However, it is a gore fest, and anyone offended by seeing boobs on the screen or historical inaccuracy might want to skip it.