300 - my thoughts
Having seen the 300 only once, here are my thoughts.
As a film, it was alright. The action sequences were fantastic, and I especially loved the Spartan sword-and-shield style of fighting, and the choreography on the pairs of combatants. Awesome! And the visuals were stunning, with some beautiful shots of Spartans standing (posing) and fighting. Loved that aspect of it, and also the scripting for the Spartans once they got to Thermopylae, with some fabulous one-liners and very quotable remarks.
However, I thought the bits in Sparta were rubbish, especially after Leonidas left. They didn't really achieve anything at all, since the bit about the army going north could just as well have been done by Delios (David Wenham) and his rousing tale, while the stuff with the ephors and the oracle was just gratuitous boobies for the men, who otherwise had too many rippling abs to stare at. All the women wore far too little, too. Most of the dialogue in the town-based scenes was just bad, and I'd rather have had more Spartans fighting, thanks.
Historically, it was a mixed bag again. I loved how much Herodotus they put in; there were quite a lot of direct quotes, and a number of more oblique references (I'll spare the details). They also knew the history enough to fling in other sources as well (e.g. Simonides). That was really nice. I knew they'd change the story to reflect their Spartanocentric view, so that the Persian Wars were won by Sparta, and no one else, which was funny and I didn't really object too much (it made me laugh a lot at the end, though, as at the real battle of Plataea, Herodotus says that the Spartans actually refused to face the Persians in combat, but wanted to fight their Greek allies, and kept moving their unit to different positions in the line, but the Persians would follow them and demanded to know why they were being so cowardly, but that may be Athenian propaganda). They also made up all sorts of new stuff that wasn't in the original, such as the whole thing with Gorgo and the council, Delios being received in Sparta with honour, the walls of bodies, the elephants and the rhinos and the like - most of that was Persian, and an element of the fantasy part of the story, which was fine. What I really didn't like was the falsification of the past, e.g. the ephors being mutant priests who kidnapped and raped young women... they're actually the annually elected magistrates of Sparta, who do all the admin for the city and keep check on the two kings (Sparta had 2 kings at a time). The barbarity of the Persians was surprising as well, and I guess it was put in the emphasise the differences between the Spartans (good) and the enemy (bad), to make you hate the Persians (because otherwise you would be in danger of indifference), but they weren't actually that barbaric, and indeed at the end of the battle of Thermopylae, when Xerxes had Leonidas' body decapitated and mutilated, even the barbarians thought he was going too far.
There were lots of minor historical details wrong as well: the appearance of the town of Sparta, lack of slaves, the Spartan swords, anachronisms etc., but they didn't detract from the film, and I think they helped the audience orient themselves in a very generic antiquity, rather than bombarding them with pedantry.
Why on earth did they insist on referring to the Hot Gates? What a dumb-sounding name! What's wrong with Thermopylae?
Generally, I enjoyed it, and thought it was visually gorgeous (loved the fight scenes so very much) but I reckon they could have left out most of the non-battle parts, barring the essential bits to explain why they were fighting, and it would have been a better movie (if lacking in breasts for the men to ogle).