By Jonathon Baron

Gargoyle senior editor


Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2007, The OG, arts

UNTIL I SAW IT, I thought that “300” represented nothing but a mind-blowingly violent amalgamation of blue-screened special effects, terrible acting, and absolutely no plot outside of Frank Miller's original comic book template for the movie — in other words, a recipe for disaster.

And just as I'd suspected, “300” truly was a terrible movie.

But the one ingredient I failed to recognize before viewing the film was the raw masculinity portrayed in it. Whether it was ridiculous or not, “300” filled me with so much adrenaline that the only two things I wanted to do directly after leaving the theater were to:

• Yell as loud as I could about everything and anything I could think of.

• Find and consume, in the most barbarian way possible, raw (red) meat.

Thirty minutes and one incredibly hoarse voice later, I regained my senses enough to realize that “300” was more effective than I'd given it credit for. This isn't because I enjoyed the movie, per se — I laughed through the entire thing, and I'm not changing my mind that it's a terrible excuse for a motion picture, regardless of its genre.

At the same time, though, “300” was unlike any war movie I'd ever seen. It had no message, no greater meaning, and no real traces of a story behind any of it. And yet — or perhaps because of this — it still dug itself far under my skin and into my mind.

In this sense, “300” has accomplished what other epic war movies have strived to do for years — capture the minds of its audience members unconditionally. And yeah, I could watch movies like “Platoon” or “Saving Private Ryan” and be overcome by their power as modern war films. But no matter how moving I might find those movies, the sentiments they leave me with are far from sparking the distinct primal urge to cause other human beings irreparable damage.

Yet when “300” was over and one of my friends joked that he was glad he didn't have anything resembling a spear or dagger in his possession at the moment, my reaction was completely different. Instead of looking at him and thinking, “You're a senior in high school — your days of playing war are long gone,” the rest of the group (luckily just guys) started pretending to slay each other.

Even when multiple unknown moviegoers walked by us and commented that we looked like total morons, we just screamed film-based insults back at them: “MORONS?! WE ARE SPARTANS!!!!! HOO-AH!!!!!”

I'm bothered by the violent tendencies I felt after seeing “300,” although the sheer stupidity of my behavior didn't have any lasting effects on me.

If anything, it made me take the movie even less seriously than before: All the time my friends and I were trading fake war cries, we were also taking turns laughing hysterically. I just wonder how a movie whose one saving characteristic is the ability to get its viewers pumped can be so successful.

That's about all I want to learn from this film. For all I know, this goes back to Tyler Durden's “Fight Club” speech about how men have reached a point at which we've become emasculated by modern culture.

I'm not really sure — for all I know, the drive I got from watching “300” is no different from watching your home team make it to the Final Four, but I've never been a big sports fan.

What I am sure of, however, is that the next time I see “300” I'm bringing my foam “No. 1!” finger and painting my face.

“300” is now playing at Beverly Cinema 18 (click here for times), and Savoy 16 (click here for times). Runtime: 117 minutes. Rated: R.

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— The film's official site