300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE 3D

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE is a highly enjoyable trashy ancient history action romp with a far better technical and historical pedigree than one might, at first, believe.  Rather than a straightforward sequel, the story of this film envelopes and gives context to the narrower, purer story of the original film. In that movie, we see King Leonidas of Sparta lead his personal bodyguard of 300 men to the hot gates, only to be betrayed by a hunchback to their deaths at the hands of the Persians. As this  movie opens we see Spartan Queen Gorga (Lena Headey) sailing with her men into battle, and recounting the back story of those events.  She takes us back to the Battle of Marathon when the Athenian general Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton - ANIMAL KINGDOM) - killed Darius I, inspiring the anger of his son Xerxes that manifested itself in the current Persian wars.  Gorga tells us of how her husband was killed (the events of the first movie) and the bulk of the action sees the simultaneous sea battles with Themistocles pitted against Xerxes' navy - commanded by his female commander Artemesia (the always brilliantly bonkers Eva Green.)  There's a lot of awesome tactical stuff, some ludicrously gory battles, and a stupidly over the top sex scene between the two opposing commanders. (Because - well - just because).  And then finally we get the Battle of Salamis, where after the death of Leonidas, Sparta finally joins its ships to the Greek alliance.  (If you think that's a spoiler, it's bloody 2500 year old history!)

There's a lot to like here.  The battles and tactics are all mostly accurate and the aerial shots mean that even in the midst of all the OTT video-game style violence you still have a clear idea of what's going on.  The acting isn't bad - certainly not as bad as Gerard Butler's Scots inflected "THIS IS SPARTAAAA!" and the style is exactly the hyper-stylised Zack Snyder style of the original, albeit directed by Noam Munro (SMART PEOPLE).  I really loved the way the movie was written, with a lot of back story handled deftly and the nice enveloping of the original movie. All in all, it just felt like an awesome live action version of Total War.

As to the actual history,  the basic outline of the story is true.  There really was a war that united the Greek city states against the Persian empire, and Themistocles really was the leading Athenian politician who commanded the navy, although that post technically went to a Spartan called Eurybides who doesn't appear in the movie.  The Spartans really didn't believe in democracy but united against a common enemy, although in fact they only supplied 16 ships against the Athenians' 180.  The battle tactics we see are mostly true - particularly the awesome battle where the Greeks lure the Persians into a narrow inlet where the size of their fleet works against them.  It is, sadly, unlikely that Queen Gorgo led the Spartans into battle, but Artemesia really was the leading Persian naval commander, and highly influential on Xerxes. She was a skilled tactician, foresaw that Xerxes should have invaded Greece by land rather than sea, but didn't die in battle. Nor was she a gang-raped slave. Rather she was Queen Regent of a Persian client state.

Which neatly brings us to the issue of alleged misogyny. On that subject it has to be admitted that we only have to wait a few minutes before we get a gratuitous boob shot, but set against that so much of 300 is about the objectification of male bodies - so much so that one might declare this a camp classic.  Admittedly, the decision to make Artemesia a sexual slave in order to motivate her vengeance is questionable, as is the fetishisation of her blood lust.  On the other hand, in the pivotal sex scene with Themistocles, when he attempts to take her from behind she turns the tables on him.  Still, I guess there is a problem with the fact that she ultimately dies (all strong women must be punished) - then again, Queen Gorga leads her troops into battle.  So, overall, 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE has far more slippery politics than one might expect, and it's also the case that we have a sword-swinging action movie where the two most recognizable stars - both of whom go into battle - are women!

In other words, this may well be the first movie franchise that has gone so far round the circle of misogyny that it's actually come back out as proto-feminist.  But maybe I'm just over thinking it!

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE went on global release on the weekend of March 7th. It has a running time of 102 minutes and is rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK for strong bloody violence, strong sex and sexual violence.

Martha Fiennes retrospective & pantheon movie of the month - ONEGIN

Martha Fiennes' feature length directorial debut, ONEGIN, is one of the most impressive films I saw during my university years. I strongly remember wandering into the local arts cinema with a motley crew of scoundrels, more out of passive boredom than out of an active decision to watch the film. We all left the cinema in complete silence, walking back to my flat without discussing the film at all because we were so wrapped up in our own emotions and reactions. Despite our very catholic taste in film, we all later agreed that it was a desperately moving and brilliantly executed film.

The first great success of the film is its translation and adaptation of the classic Pushkin poem. Peter Etedgui and Michael Ignatieff - a writer, historian and public intellectual - manage to preserve the characterisations, wit, beauty and even some of the lilt of the source language without making the characters speak dialogue that feels cold and anachronistic.

The second great success of the film is Martha Fiennes' particular visual style. Her camera moves elegantly around ball-rooms and through corridors, and has a very fluid, sensuous feel. Moreover, she has created sets and costumes that are rather stylised. So instead of a static, crowded, 100% historically accurate "BBC costume drama" feel, we have a sense that the characters are real and have room to move and breathe.

Finally, the casting is, with a few exceptions, absolutely spot-on. Ralph Fiennes is perfect as the anti-hero, Onegin. His face is almost immobile, his voice barely raised to inflection, in the early scenes in Petersburg. He is manifestly bored by society, bored further by his idea of the country and, as we meet him in the opening scene, wrapped in furs, wandering when "death will take me". Later, when he comes to realise the value of the innocent love that Tatiana Larina offered him - and which he patronisingly rejected - Ralph Fiennes will transform Onegin into an uncertain, weary, perhaps deluded figure, huddled in a blanket on a freezing Petersburg balcony, forever waiting for the love letter that will never come.

Playing against Ralph Fiennes, Liv Tyler is outstanding as Tatiana - the young girl who offers herself to Onegin, only to be rejected, and then martyrs herself in a loveless but faithful marriage to a dull but worthy man. Tyler always manages to convey passionate emotions and profound thought just behind her very proper and conventional surface. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that she's so beautiful. There's also a wonderful little scene where her rich aunt has praised her skin and Tatiana, perhaps for the first time, turns to a mirror and assesses her value on the marriage market, with some evident pride.

In the smaller roles, we have some economically sketched and wonderfully portrayed cameo performances by British character actors. Harriet Walters is suitably spiky and thwarted as Madame Larina; Simon McBurney is very funny as the oleaginous, pretentious French tutor Triquet and Irene Worth is magisterial as the pragmatic, amoral Petersburg matriarch Princess Alina.

If there is a flaw with the film, I think it's in the casting of Tatiana's sister Olga, and her lover, Lensky. In fairness to Lena Headey, she doesn't have much to do as Olga, other than flirt, but I've always found Headey curiously lacking in screen presence and unable to portray depth of characterisation. Toby Stephens isn't bad as the simple-minded but honest country lord and aspiring poet, Lensky. In other roles I have found Stephens irritating - he always seems to come across as arrogant and dull-witted, no matter what the part. Luckily that is not a distraction here, although I think the scene where he thinks Olga is flirting with Onegin is horribly over-acted.

But perhaps the real skill was in choosing to adapt the poem in the first place. I've always thought that the more closely drawn and sparely populated the source material, the better the film. Sprawling epics are rarely done justice on the big screen. Collapsing WAR AND PEACE into a two-hour romance necessarily degrades it, and few film-makers have the unlimited budget offered to Sergei Bondarchuk. On the other hand, look at the wonderful recent adaptation of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN - a short story with a cast of maybe two main and two secondary characters; a few key dramatic episodes; and lots of room for the film-maker to take a lyrical and patient approach. ONEGIN is another example of a source text that is richly but tightly drawn, with a handful of key protagonists, a few key episodes but a profound and unforgettable emotional journey lying underneath it.

Fiennes carefully contrasts the prattling posers in Petersburg with the more straightforwardly socially aspirant country society. Amidst all the useless beauty, Onegin spots Tatiana Larina and is intrigued by her honest integrity, intelligence and curiosity. He sees her worth and while he does not consider her as a lover, he sees how much more she is worth than her flirtatious superficial sister Olga. Onegin's relationship with Lensky is, in some ways, even more interesting. Lensky is a fool, but honest, and honestly in love with Olga. One imagines that Onegin's intelligence and cynicism is offended by this ridiculous and yet apparently deeply felt love. Offended even more when it is thrown into contrast by Tatiana's genuine offer of love which Onegin, jaded, high-handed, cannot accept.

Perhaps it is the ludicrous nature of the contrast between the romance between Olga and Lensky - and the romance he won't permit between himnself and Tatiana - that leads Onegin to cruelly expose the emptiness at its heart. He dances with Olga, Lensky is enraged, they duel, and Onegin kills his friend. He has destroyed a second-rate sort of love affair, but he curses himself in the process. He has learned the true value of Tatiana, of his capacity for love, and the true hell of an empty and solitary life. All this is captured with a delicate camera, sensitive performances and without the dessicated feel of a period drama, in Martha Fiennes' wonderful film.

ONEGIN played Toronto and Venice 1999 and was released in the UK and US that year. It opened in Israel, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Portugal, Spain, the Philippines, South Africa, Germany and Poland in 2000 and in Hungary and Hong Kong in 2001. It is available on DVD.

ST TRINIAN'S - clearly leery, but still rather fun

ST TRINIAN'S is a movie that is sure to provoke outrage and rightly so. After all, there is something leery and pervy about getting a bunch of teenage girls dressed up in mini-skirted, suspender-ed school uniforms. Added to this, half the jokes are about fellatio and the other half are about illegal substance abuse. Against such a backdrop, the script-writers lame attempts to throw in a one-liner about how "clever is cool" seems a pretty thin cover. More admirable and endemic to the plot is the idea that ST TRINIAN'S is the last bastion of free thinking in a country of league tables, SATs and the National Curriculum. Laudable stuff.

The key point is that, as politically incorrect as ST TRINIAN'S is, it's also a lot of fun. Indeed, far more fun than I had expected. The script is genuinely funny, the visual humour and witty one-liners well observed. The film has a lot of energy and the caper is engaging. The ends all tie up and a good time is had by all. The plot sees the infamous girls fight off a twin threat to their beloved school. First, the government is sending in a ruthless Minister, Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth) to reform Britain's most anarchic, under-performing school. At the same time, the headmistress is in danger of losing the school unless she can repay the Bank £500,000. So the girls decide to nick The Girl With The Pearl Ear-ring from the National Gallery and fence it the headmistress' scoundrelous brother - a Mayfair art dealer - via their shifty mate Flash Harry (Russell Brand). They do so by cheating their way to the final of a school quiz, which is held in the National Gallery.

In particular, I loved Rupert Everett in drag as ST TRINIAN's headmistress. There is something simply delicious in seeing him camp across the grounds in a lurid pink jersey-suit topped of with a Hermes scarf. And the way in which he/she vamps at Colin Firth's stuffy New Labour Education minister is pure joy! Jodie Whitaker (VENUS) is also fantastically fun as the school's chav secretary - just watch her dancing to the final song from GIRLS ALOUD. Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie and Toby Jones (INFAMOUS) are all good value in very small parts as are the very under-used/under-rated Fenella Woolgar (BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS) as the gun-toting PE teacher and Lucy Punch (BEING JULIA) as the Minister's daughter and Cheltenham Ladies College hockey captain.

In such a busy, riotous ensemble piece many actors fall by the wayside. Lena Headey (300) is worst served as the geeky new teacher. Mischa Barton is perfectly fine in her cameo, but the cameo seems utterly redundant to all but those marketing the film to US distributors.

Still, all-in-all, and despite the suspect sexual politics, ST TRINIAN'S is a good solid piece of light entertainment. My final observation is that, given the content, the BFI's 12A rating seems a trifle generous. Parents of young teens might want to vet the movie before letting their younger offspring loose on it.

P.S. Did I forget to mention the awesome two-tone score?

ST TRINIAN'S is on release in the UK.

300 - truly a spectacle

300 is truly a spectacle. It dazzles the viewer with stunning images of finely-hewed, red-caped Spartan warriors; decadent Persian courtiers; a gold-flecked, jewel-bedecked god-king; and enough stylised spear-fights to satisfy the most ardent Total Warrior.

The movie is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel which told the story of the Battle of Thermopylae. Thermopylae is a narrow pass in Greece, and in 480 BC King Leonidas of Sparta defended that pass with a small army of his own Spartans and other Greeks against a vastly larger Persian invading force.

Writer-director Zach Snyder beautifully renders Frank Miller's graphic novel: feeding our imaginations with the sort of old-fashioned glamour, excess and epic sentiment that old-fashioned big-studio Hollywood used to specialise in. The director uses the same techniques as in SIN CITY - mixing live-action with CGI to create highly stylised visuals that approximate the graphic novel. Famous plates are re-created closely - specifically Leonidas pushing the Persian ambassador into the well; the Spartans herding the Persians off a cliff; and the final spear throw that grazes Xerxes face. The casting closely matches the facial features of the characters in the graphic novel too - especially the case of the effete Xerxes and Leonidas himself.

The plot is also fairly close to the novel, with no key scenes ommitted. The key difference is that the role of Queen Gorgo is massively enhanced, perhaps as a sop to Hollywood's need for a strong female character and a love-interest. (They did the same thing with the role of Arwen in LOTR). Thus, the film breaks away from the battle-scenes to Gorgo's struggle to get the Spartan council to send the full army in support of Leonidas.

So much for what 300 is. What 300 is not, is a history lesson. It is not a political tract. Nor should we beat it up for failing to give us an exact rendering of the key battles and fighting styles or for simplifying the clash between Persia and Greece as one of freedom versus tyranny. (Although, in its defence, Dominic West's Spartan politican rightly points out to Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo that not all men are born equal, even in Sparta.)

300 does not pretend to be a serious politico-historical discourse. It is, simply-put, epic, fascinating, sensually-luxurious entertainment. The concubines, giant-mutant beasties, scabrous priests and other exotica pander to our most basic desire for the strange and exciting. I defy anyone not to take pleasure in the finale to Gorgo's council speech or Gerard Butler's Connery-like drawl as he refuses to kneel to Xerxes on account of his "cramp".

Moreover, exotica aside, the battle scenes do give us a sense of the scale of the battle and the key tactical necessity of forcing the Persians to abandon an open assault from the beach and attempt to pass through the narrow gorge at Thermopylae. I doubt whether Frank Miller's novel or this film would have been successful as they are without this key central fact: dress it up how you will, the true story of a small band of men defending their home against a mammoth invading army and inflicting disproportionately large injuries upon it is, in a word, quite literally: awesome.

300 is on release in the Philippines, Greece, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, the US, South Korea, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Turkey, the UK, Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands and Russia. It opens in Bulgaria, Estonia, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Romania and Spain tomorrow. It opens in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Slovakia, Slovenia on the 29th and in Brazil, Denmark, Latvia and Venezuala on the 30th. 300 opens in Sweden on April 4th and in Australia, Germany, Israel and Portugal on April 5th. It opens in Austria and Finland on April 6th and in Japan on June 9th.

IMAGINE ME & YOU - derivative then daring then dull

IMAGINE ME AND YOU starts as a British romantic comedy firmly in the Richard Curtis style. It is set in aspirational London - beautiful young professionals who live in apartments furnished by Heals and The White Company with the odd choice "objet" from an auction. They live in Notting Hill or Primrose Hill rather the Chelski or Mayfair and work vaguely in The City or The Arts or beautifully quaint shops. They have lovely country weddings with quirky guests giving witty speeches in clipped upper class accents. I have nothing against this except the fact that having been done so many times before (often with great box office success) it all seems a little derivative. IMAGINE AND ME AND YOU draws in its audience thanks to this easy familiarity. It starts with a wedding - between a dull but sweetly in love couple called Hector (stock-broker) and Rachel (vaguely at work in trendy office). They are played by the charming and blandly good-looking Matthew Goode and Piper Perabo. Naturally they have odd, but vaguely funny parents (Celia Imrie and Anthony Head) and a loveably sleazy best man (Darren Boyd).

Now, after about twenty minutes the movie does something rather daring and I got radically more interested. It makes the extra-marital love interest gay. So Rachel finds herself attracted to a florist named Lucy, played by Lena Headey - an older, more charismatic version of Keira Knightley. At this point I thought to myself, wow, this is really clever. They've suckered in Middle England with a cut and paste safe as houses British rom-com but now they're going to do something daring and brilliant. Sadly, I was wrong. There is a lot of long-winded trauma concerning whether Rachel can ditch her lovely husband for the lovely florist, but then the movie snaps back into Curtis mode with a typically absurd love scene at the end. It involves people declaring their love across traffic jams atop cars. Schmaltz to the max. And in case you were wondering, absolutely no graphic lesbian sex scenes of the kind that might shock your grandmother. In fact, this film is so safe it's actually disappointing and you could get a more moving treatment of similar material in KISSING JESSICA STEIN.

Still, for about 15 minutes IMAGINE ME AND YOU was brilliant, and for the rest it was a well-acted if derivative rom-com. There's also a very funny cameo from Ben Miles as Hector's greedy capitalist bastard boss, Rob. (Exchanges like: Hector to Rob: Fuck you bonus. Rob to Hector: I wish I could!)Perfectly harmless and fine for a DVD and a dinner date, I suppose.

IMAGINE ME AND YOU showed at Toronto 2005 and went on release in the US, Australia, Israel, Greece, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK and opens in Italy later this month, in Poland in July, in Portugal in August, in Singapore in September and in France in November.

Movies I won't be watching this weekend

Over this side of the pond, we have this little thing called the World Cup which means that my attentions have been diverted to supporting England and trouncing all-comers in the Metro Fantasy Football League. However, here are a few movies that I would NOT watch this weekend even if I were at liberty to do so. I know it is unethical to review movies you haven’t seen but seriously, it’s a racing certainty that the following will suck ass:

AN UNFINISHED LIFE: Helmer Lasse Hallstrom specialises in these saccharine sub-Ron Howard weepies. In this case we have J-Lo showing her range as a single mother who runs away from an abusive boyfriend. She seeks refuge with her father-in-law, played by Robert Redford. The Redford character blames the J-Lo character for his son’s death and has isolated himself from the world. However, he does have his trusty side-kick – Morgan Freeman – who once again trots out his tired act as the sage, wizened best friend. You know how this plot is going to unwind even before you step into the cinema. The young grand-daughter is going to revive Redford’s passion for life. He will come to form a relationship with his daughter-in-law. All things will be well. I have no doubt that this flick will be well-acted, well-shot and suitably lyrical. But seriously, what is the point of another movie that rolls off the head and heart like glycerine?

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT. Believe me when I say that I am all about beautiful people driving around in fast cars. However, there is something a little bit hokey in the producers restaging the same move for the third time but in Japan just to cash in on the supposed cool-ness of the youth scene there. Indeed, I suspect that this flick is the cinematic equivalent of Gwen Stefani. Moreover, I also suspect that this flick falls into the same category as DOOM. Blowing shit up is fun, but I’d much rather do it myself. So, instead of wasting 100 minutes on TOKYO DRIFT, I faithfully promise all my readers to devote 100 minutes to playing Gran Turismo. Nice.

IMAGINE ME AND YOU: If I see another lame attempt to rip-off the success of FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL I may have to kill myself. People seem to think that any British romantic-comedy featuring well-heeled Londoners in morning dress will be a guaranteed hit: never mind bothering to do anything so obvious as to write an actual joke. The latest spin on the formula is to make the love interest Sapphic and I certainly applaud the fact that we can now have homosexual storylines as the central plot-line in main-stream comedies. However, I suspect that novelty aside, this movie will turn out to be another unfunny, unexciting damp squib.

Anyways, what do I know? Literally nothing as I have not seen these three films. If you’ve seen them and would recommend them, let me know.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM – Napoleonic Ghostbusters

In this movie, the Brothers Grimm are con artists who ride around rural French-occupied Germany faking witches and goblins to scare superstitious German peasants and then vanquishing with the help of shiny armour, explosives and catapults, all for a big fat fee. Heath Ledger (10 Things I Hate About You, Monster’s Ball) gives a very enjoyable performance as geek, scholar and believer in magic, Jakob Grimm. Half the time he is channelling Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys – all rapid-fire dialogue and facial ticks. The other half of the time he is channelling Steve Coogan as Alan Patridge. The performance is not quite the sum of its parts, but is enjoyable nonetheless. Matt Damon plays William Grimm, who emphatically does not believe in magic but in making money by exploiting the dumb-ass peasants. A worthy aim indeed.

Everything is ticking over nicely until they are sent by the Napoleonic head honcho to Marbaden to rescue the little girls who have gone missing in the words and are respectively excited and horrified to discover that there really is something in the woodshed – namely Monica Bellucci (Matrix, The Passion of the Christ) as a five hundred year old witch trapped in a mirror.

There are significant flaws with this movie. The French general, Delattombe, and his Italian sidekick, Cavaldi, are played by Jonathan Pryce (Evita, Brazil) and Peter Stormare (The Big Lebowski) as caricatures – absurd costumes and accents. What passed for humour in 1980s sitcoms like “’Allo, ‘Allo” and “Fawlty Towers” just isn’t funny anymore - it’s lazy.

But there is a lot to like. At its heart, there is a serious discussion about how much native culture was lost when the Christians took over Europe, and of the Enligtenment battle between faith and reason. There are many obvious and subtle references to fairy tales, all beautifully re-created with a seamless blending of CGI and old school cinematographic techniques. The whole thing is a visual feast with a few good one-liners thrown in.

Like any Terry Gilliam film, this was beset by funding difficulties. MGM pulled out at the last minute and the Weinsteins took over production. They vetoed Samantha Morton as the female lead, fired the Director of Photography, Nicola Pecorini for going to slowly and generally ticked Gilliam off. Finally, the release was pushed back to allow Miramax’s movie The 40 year old virgin to retain its number one spot in the US box office. The film was likewise mistreated by the US critics who, to a man, called it a rambling mess – albeit visually stunning. On the upside, the film was finished, unlike the ill-fated "Don Quixote", and was released, and it is not a mess. It is highly enjoyable, pure entertainment. One last thing, if you are going to see this movie you should try to make it to a cinema rather than waiting for the DVD to get the full benefit of the production design.

The Brothers Grimm has been on release in the US since the 26th August, in France and Germany since the 5th October and finally goes on Nationwide release in the UK on the 4th November.