Deathdrop,
Yautja,
10 years ago
Oh, boy, you're gonna regret getting me on this subject... I havn't seen the second (nor will I), but as for the first one, wow, let's see:
1. Ugly-looking CGI in literally every shot, making the entire movie look like Shrek took a shit. The blood is CGI. The sets are CGI. The fucking ACTORS are digitally altered. There's no reality to the movies at all, and yet it proposes to be about something as bloody and visceral and tactile as military combat.
2. Completely uninteresting fight scenes. Oh, look, they're stabbing those guys. WAIT, HERE COME SOME MORE POWERFUL GUYS oh wait, no, they stabbed them, too. Immortal ninja dudes? Stab. Elephants? Stab. 8 foot goblin dudes? Stab. There were one or two interesting strategic moves, but overall it was just slash/stab/repeat.
3. Typical macho "war is fuckin' cool, BRO" narrative. Tries to portray a bunch of people dying as something other than a bunch of people dying. I realize this applies to every action movie ever made, but if you're going to beat us over the head with how important the conflict is and have said conflict take up 90% of the film, you'd better portray it AS a conflict and not a game of Dynasty Warriors.
4. "Overuse" of slow-mo doesn't even begin to cover it. Play the whole movie regular speed, and it's about 12 minutes long.
5. Supposed "heroes" of the piece are fucking scumbags. Sparta was a monarchy full of militaristic, slave-owning, child molesting, hyper-aggressive sociopaths who played A role (not THE role) in driving back the Persians. The film tries to clean them up by making them some kind of weird 'Murika stand-in, eliminates the child molesting and slavery, portrays them as noble warriors... But leaves in the bit about the horrific eugenics routine where the "impure" are tossed off a fucking cliff, AND DEFENDS IT. I was just floored by this.
6. It paved the way for Immortals, Sucker Punch, Man of Steel, the mediocre Clash of the Titans remake, and a host of other cinematic shit-stains... But mostly Man of Steel.
7. It was clearly intended to play to nationalistic dudebro assholes who say "faggot" in place of "um" and is rife with creepy Triumph of the Will-esque imagery. It portrays a world where middle easterners and gays and blacks try to take 'ur jeeuuuuuerbs, so the badass Aryan supermen have to go fuckin' kill em' and shit, bro, and it's glorious and beautiful instead of terrifying and bloody. It is literally everything I hate about modern America distilled into one two hour abomination.
A few years later, Zack Snyder would inject this same disgusting attitude into Superman, resulting in the only film I have ever walked out of. Fuck 300.
tl;dr: I didn't care for it.