300 on HD DVD - Movie Review

[Wayde]

This review of Frank Miller's 300 originally appears on GizmoCafe.com.

300, the movie, is the CGI action film event of 2006 and is now on HD DVD, DVD and Blu-ray. Shot 100% digitally, this film begs to be viewed on one of the high definition disc formats. But it’s the HD DVD users that get treated to groundbreaking disc technology: Make Your Own Movie.

See the complete review of the Special Features of this disc here including the Make Your Own Movie HD DVD exclusive.

300 is adapted from the graphic novel of the same name. It’s Frank Miller’s impressionistic vision of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

In the movie, a coalition of forces under the Persian Empire gathered to invade the shining light of a fledgling western civilization; Greece. It’s up to the heroic King Leonidas of Sparta and 300 hopelessly outnumbered Spartan warriors to slow the invading force long enough for Greece to muster a viable defense.

The Movie Review

Director Zack Snyder meticulously follows the visual style of Frank Miller’s comic series the way Sin City followed its respective comic book. Although comparisons to Sin City are inevitable, 300 gives us more color than Sin City ever could have. The movie is a visual feast of stylized fight scenes and CGI sets. It weighs itself down with only enough dialogue, plot and character development to drive the Spartans into action. Don’t expect a wordy history lesson here. This movie is a masterpiece of unbridled digital myth making.

We Shall Fight in the Shade

Thermopylae is widely held as an important battle for western civilization. The[LC1] loss of Athenian intellectual advances to a superstitious Persian empire ruled by a king who fancied himself a god could have caused incalculable setbacks to civilization and technology. But it’s only the benefit of history that affords this perspective now. The film hammers us with unlikely dialogue where Spartans blurt out high-minded platitudes between swordplay.



It’s easy to find much of the dialogue comical or even cheesy. But remember that much of it is taken from the pages of a comic book and, believe it or not, the famous line “we shall fight in the shade” was a quote from lifted from pages written by Herodotus. Never mind the dialogue – the film moves at a mile-a-minute pace while we’re treated to the finest eye candy this side of the local Cineplex.

HD DVD Video

The film’s visuals are a jaw-dropping example high def disc technology. I’ve long held the HD DVD version of Peter Jackson’s King Kong to be the best example of video I’ve seen on the format with its rich, colorful detail. I now have a new one to set right along side King Kong.

But 300 provides something different. It’s not nearly as pristine as Jackson’s Kong. Instead of life-like, rich details you get overexposure, saturated colors and murky shadows – exactly as the director intended. You see, 300 seeks dreamy legend rather than crisp high definition reality. It delivers a visual style complete with the ambiguities you’d expect upon awakening from a half remembered nightmare.

300 HD DVD is the kind of disc you retain as a reference anytime you want a practical demonstration of the technology. Its stylized shots and creative video effects make it a veritable bookend to the clean, sunny skylines featured in Jackson’s King Kong.

Sound

I watched the film in 5.1 Dolby Digital through my Xbox 360’s HD DVD add-on player. An optical cable connection feeds my Arcam receiver - the receiver powers five NHT speakers and delivers an audio signal to my 12” subwoofer.

Dolby TrueHD is available on the disc and selectable through my setup. I avoided it, however, since I lack TrueHD decoding and didn’t feel I’d be acoustically served with a downsampled version. So I elected to just go with regular Dolby Digital 5.1 pending future experimentation.

The film’s soundtrack made practical use of surround channels. When young Leonidas faces the wolf in the snow, the echo in the cave was reproduced perfectly. A few times through the movie I heard odd birds fluttering about in the surrounds; effects that added depth without ever being overbearing.



There was one scene where I swore I heard a loon. And I know the call of a loon. It is summer, and living in Canada means the lonely call of the loon is fresh in my mind. Whether or not loons are indigenous to Greece is immaterial, though. If rear channel audio was detailed enough for me to believe I picked out a species of bird, I am suitably impressed.

Warning: Bass and subwoofer are used liberally throughout. Just when you start thinking the soundtrack is only feeding you a constant monotone rumble to exaggerate fight scenes, the .1 channel will do something more detailed and dynamic. There were parts of the film that dipped as far into 20Hz range as my sub was capable of and I could feel them in my chest. It’s truly a bass lover’s soundtrack. If you have a sub that can follow subtle variation down low, you certainly won’t be disappointed.

Verdict – Who Will Like this Film?

If you’ve been known to enjoy the odd mindless action film, you’ll love it. tThough this is no mindless action film -- quite the contrary, it’s a highly esthetic mindless action film and there is a difference.

If you’re a comics fan you’ll love 300’s faithfulness to the source material. However, you might not like this movie if you expect a detailed and historically accurate ‘period piece’ depicting ancient Greece; this film more closely resembles fantasy. You’ll really love this film if you’re interested in seeing what groundbreaking cinematography and digital technologies are capable of producing today. And if you really enjoy the movie, the HD DVD has enough special features to keep you busy for days.

See a complete review of special features for this movie.

Thanks for reading guys, I'll post the special features review in a subsequent post as soon as I get some time today.

[Sonnie]

Excellent Review! Thanks!

I got my HD copy in today... hope to watch it tonight.

[SteveB]

I just watched 300 tonight. Wow. Not much color in the movie but the detail and sound was excellent. Great story line too. Two thumbs up from me.
Just asked the GF if she noticed the sync problem and she said the same thing I thought, I was so wrapped up in the movie that I didn't notice it.
I will add that my surround set up sounds so much better with this hd player using the 6.1 direct connection. Channel separation is so much better and the sound is much cleaner.

[Sonnie]

I watched this over the weekend and thought it was one of the best movies I've seen in a while. I'll be watching it again soon.

[wbassett]

Same here, I couldn't wait for the one hour drive one way to the nearest Best Buy to buy the HD DVD version so I opted to rent it in SDVD and buy it from the Shack!

I knew this wasn't going to be a historically accurate movie and didn't expect it to be. It was a whole lotta fun to watch though! This definitely will be a proud addition to my HD DVD collection.

[John Simpson]

We just watched this as well -- quite a good movie, some really interesting visual effects and colour treatments. The sound normalisation was all over the place though -- really quiet, then really noisy. Not sure what my pre-amp was doing...

I did spend a lot of the movie watching the guys' six-packs... all the while slightly conscious of my increasingly obvious paunch

[Wayde]

What's funny is that the movie had been deemed somewhat ... err... shall we say strange-looking. One could say 300 featured more exposed six packs than a strange parade.

But the movie was also criticized for not being historically accurate enough.

Be careful what you wish for – at least where historic accuracy of Spartan movies are concerned. The Spartans were known to go into battle completely unclothed, 300 gave us loin cloth modesty. And yes the Spartans were known to engage in the Philadelphia.

Fortunately we were spared that level of historic accuracy.

[Hakka]

Watched it last night on HD DVD, the TrueHD sound was incredible. The HD DVD has a picture in picture of the movie without digital effects, playing over the main movie. I don't usually watch the extras but this was very interesting.

Hakka.

[louthewiz]

I liked it very much as well.