An early film version that retells the classic story of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which King Leonidas and his 300 loyal Spartan warriors fought the Persian forces of King Xerxes, who were said to number over a million. This was a childhood favourite of comic book author Frank Miller, whose comic book version of the same story, 300, was made in a 2006 film by Zach Snyder.
It's hard to compare the two films because they're so very different. 300 is a heavily stylised comic book film filled with garish violence and green-screen effects. By contrast, THE 300 SPARTANS is a traditional sword and sandal adventure in which the battle doesn't even take place until the last half hour of a two hour film. If I'm honest, this has too much back story while 300 has too little.
Still, there's much to recommend in THE 300 SPARTANS, not least some solid acting in the likes of rugged lead Richard Egan and Ralph Richardson in a minor role. The movie was actually shot in Greece, which adds plenty of authenticity to it, and the action scenes are handled with aplomb and just as exciting as those in 300. The first half is quite slow and there's a tacked-on romantic sub-plot which drags things down alongside a couple of those needless dancing scenes to pad out the running time, but it's still a solid, able production that provides a fairly faithful retelling of the source material. If you want a fantastic adaptation of the story that blows away both film versions, check out Steven Pressfield's gritty novel, GATES OF FIRE.
It's hard to compare the two films because they're so very different. 300 is a heavily stylised comic book film filled with garish violence and green-screen effects. By contrast, THE 300 SPARTANS is a traditional sword and sandal adventure in which the battle doesn't even take place until the last half hour of a two hour film. If I'm honest, this has too much back story while 300 has too little.
Still, there's much to recommend in THE 300 SPARTANS, not least some solid acting in the likes of rugged lead Richard Egan and Ralph Richardson in a minor role. The movie was actually shot in Greece, which adds plenty of authenticity to it, and the action scenes are handled with aplomb and just as exciting as those in 300. The first half is quite slow and there's a tacked-on romantic sub-plot which drags things down alongside a couple of those needless dancing scenes to pad out the running time, but it's still a solid, able production that provides a fairly faithful retelling of the source material. If you want a fantastic adaptation of the story that blows away both film versions, check out Steven Pressfield's gritty novel, GATES OF FIRE.