300 - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

300



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
Tonight we dine in hell!

Ahh, 300, one of the most divisive blockbuster’s of the last 20 years. It’s one of those comic book adaptations that you either love for it’s excesses….or you hate it for it’s excesses. Adapted from the famous Frank Miller graphic Novel, 300 was Zack Snyder’s magnum opus for comic book glee. It was a gory mess of a film that took Frank Miller’s bloody comic book and brought it to life, using nearly 100% green screen and testosterone to make a literal moving picture comic book. Not everyone who read the comics loved it, as they thought it went a little bit too crazy, but I was one of the film’s biggest supporters back when it came out in 2007. I bought the DVD, I bought the Blu-ray a year later when I got a PS3 (I was a year late to the Blu-ray side as I originally invested in HD-DVD), then bought the 2009 special edition digibook when it came out. Said Digibook was a nice little set that included a gorgeous Digibook packaging, but also dropped the LPCM track (it had 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track AND a LPCM lossless mix for some reason) in favor of Picture in Picture commentary and a few other extras. While I love the 4K UHD release right here I WAS a little disappointed that Warner included the old original Blu-ray in the combo pack instead of using the SLIGHTLY superior special d igibook edition Blu-ray that came with a few more extras. A minor whine, and really nothing to scorn the 4K UHD set for as the extras were fairly inconsequential.

300 tells a highly stylized and fictionalized tale of one of history’s greatest “David and Goliath” stories. Told by a lone survivor (David Wenhem’s character), the movie tells the tale of King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and a compliment of 300 men who held off THOUSANDS of the Persian King Xerxes’ invading forces for days before falling battle, effectively giving Greece time to mount a counter offensive and drive the Persian’s from Greece’s shores. Xerxes (Rodgrigo Santoro) sends a message to the Spartan King demanding that he boy to Persia’s rule, but runs into one of the classic blunders. No, not going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line, but off the violent Spartans.

King Leonidas is warned by the corrupted oracles that he shouldn’t go, and his council agrees with the sages. However, Leonidas is not about to let his city state fall to Persian scum, and takes compliment of 300 men to hold them off at the pass of Thermopylae in hopes of his queen (Lena Headey) convincing the rest of the council to rally the rest of Greece and bring an army with her to drive out the invaders. Setting up camp at Thermopylae, Leonidas and his men create a funnel for the Persians to come to them through, effectively turning their superiority in numbers into a disadvantage, giving the Greeks the ability to fight the various waves of monstrous men on even ground, and hold the line until the rest of Greece can get there.

We all know the ending to this famous battle. Leonidas and his men are eventually defeated by the Persians, but before they do, they give enough time for Greece to amass an army that actually causes the insanely powerful Persian army to withdraw, and leave Greece as one of the few places that Xerxes couldn’t conquer. 300 isn’t exactly factual outside of the basic premise. Xerxes may never have been there, the Immortals and the rest of the Persian army weren’t mutated monsters, and the Spartans didn’t talk with a Scottish accent. Either way, it’s a stylized bit of wizardry that is sheer, gloriously gory, fun from beginning to end. It’s not meant to be taken literally, and Snyder gleefully indulges in excess from every angle, whether that be with blood and gore, visual CGI, or turning every enemy into a visual nightmare to fuel the Spartan’s rage.

However, those who find flaws in the film will do so easily. Story arcs are really just nothing but an excuse for the 300 to pour on the blood and battle scenes, characters are nothing more than hyped up testosterone driven brutes, and the use of CGI turns the film almost into an animated venture. I’m not one who finds a lot of faults with the movie, but I CAN see why someone looking for something more substantial may be turned off by the film. But at the end of the day, 300 is a visual tour de force that just has fun with the comic book source and is a blast to watch.




Rating:

Rated R for graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity




4K Video: Video:

The old Blu-ray release was back in the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format days, so it was stuck with the older VC-1 video codec, and while widely considered a GREAT Blu-ray, is also rather dated by today’s standards. While I initially gave it a 4.5/5 rating back in 2009 I have to be more conservative and re-rate the Blu-ray to 4/5. That being said, the 4K UHD offers a substantial upgrade to the already solid Blu-ray. Before diving in be aware that 300 is not your typical film and should be graded as such. The film was literally 90% green screen, used boosted contrast levels, hot red color schemes and post production added film grain (natural film grain, as 300 was shot on 35mm film already) to give it a heavily textured look.

The new 4K UHD is a good improvement. It adds a little bit of everything to the mix. Enhanced colors with the use of HDR, a richer color scheme, and the boosted contrast doesn’t seem to wash everything out as much. Fine details are better and more precise, and the extra film grain looks less chunky. I did notice that the 4K disc definitely looks darkened, but not in a bad way. Night scenes actually look like they’re at night (the Blu-ray always looked like a “day for night shot” due to the boosted contrast) and there is no black crush that isn’t intentional. It’s a great looking disc and well worth the upgrade.







Audio:

300 has always had a great sounding mix, but I wasn’t prepared for just how good the Atmos expansion would be. Just as the video is a visual treat to behold, the audio is nothing short of spectacular. The second half is one non-stop battle with such an incredibly immersive sound stage that I was actually hearing arrows whistling by my ear. The ability to pinpoint the direction and of whistle and whine is jaw dropping, as you hear them start out front, shift overhead, and then drop down to the sides and rears as they impact the ground. The cacophony of hand to hand combat roars all around, and the entire thing just sends chills down my back. LFE is crushingly powerful, adding to the hard rock sound track as well as the terrifying rumble of Xerxes and his elephant driven army. The film is good/great, the video is spectacular, but the Atmos is nothing short of legendary.
.





Extras:

• Audio Commentary with director/co-writer Zack Snyder, co-writer Kurt Johnstad and director of photography Larry Fong (found on the 4K UHD disc and the Blu-ray)
• The 300: Fact or Fiction
• Who Were the Spartans? The Warriors of 300
• Preparing for Battle: The Original Test Footage
• The Frank Miller Tapes
• Making of 300
• Making 300 in Images
• Webisode: Production Design
• Webisode: Wardrobe
• Webisode: Stunt Work
• Webisode: Lena Headey
• Webisode: Adapting the Graphic Novel
• Webisode: Gerard Butler
• Webisode: Rodrigo Santoro
• Webisode: Training the Actors
• Webisode: Culture of the Sparta City/State
• Webisode: A Glimpse from the Set: Making 300
• Webisode: Scene Studies from 300
• Webisode: Fantastic Characters of 300
• Deleted Scenes with introduction by Zack Snyder

Final Score: ​

300 is a style over substance film that caters directly to the innate 12 year old boy in us all. There’s gore, there’s nudity, there’s cheesy one liners, and most of all, there’s TONS of battle sequences as nearly nude men glisten in the sunlight cheerfully hacking up Persians. It’s not exactly the thinking man’s movie, but it caters directly to fans of the graphic novels, and much like Sin City, is easily accessible to those who haven’t read the source material either. Zack Snyder definitely loves his hyper violence, and he gives it to us in droves here in what is widely considered to be his most visually stunning movie to date. The 4K UHD disc is fantastic, upgrading a slightly dated transfer with a really nice 4K upgrade, and even tweaking the audio a bit to give us a more engaging mix. Extras are the ones found on the 2007 release (would have loved that 2009 digibook edition with a few more extras), but all in all, this is a great release by Warner.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Gerard Butler, Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Lena Headey, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Michael B. Gordon, Frank Miller (Graphic Novel)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 116 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 6th, 2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I enjoyed 300 and will check it out again .

 

[Todd Anderson]

Got my copy this week.

I feel like I should rip my shirt off and do a few hundred pushups before giving this a go! Can't wait!!!!!

 

[Jack]

I feel ya Todd, alas I will not fool myself into thinking I could do a few hundred pushups. Maybe one or two.

I so did like this movie. I swear blood dripped from my screen.