Thanks to Hugh and Simon from Beatwax, I got to be one of about, erm, 300 ‘influential bloggers’ to go and see Frank Miller/Zack Snyder’s “300” yesterday, a film about how 300 Spartans held off the invading Persian army.

That is literally all you need to know about the plot. It is a thing of awesomeness: everything about it is well done. The shots are beautiful, the acting powerful, the comic book like physiques of the near super-heroic Spartans is appropriate, the battles fantastic, the voices great, the drama high, the tension good, the sound ear-blowingly awesome, and the beards… well, they have to be seen to be believed. There’s really not a lot of plot to unveil and not many weak points. James, who came to watch it with me, observed that the ‘political’ subplot was less interesting, and there’s no doubt that some of the dialogue is unnecessary, but it doesn’t diminish from the overall sense of wonder.

I guess the two things I’d say to people going to see it: if you can’t deal with scenes of violence and gore, you might have some trouble. And: deal with your problems with violence and gore and go see this movie. It’s great.

Whilst I’m under no obligation to write about it (as you’ll see if you click through to Hugh’s blog), who wouldn’t want to!? It’s a fantastic film and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there are another 299 positive blog reviews being written or published as we speak. I had to miss the Q&A with Zack Snyder, who came across as someone remarkably humble, nervous and inarticulate for the man responsible for the wonder of 300, but am sure he perked up during the questions – gather he’s had quite a busy couple of days flying around.

Armand’s now off to wonder whether Leonidus vs. Ninja would be an interesting deathmatch… and also why, despite the fact that they obviously care about bloggers, the makers of 300 didn’t give us access to any easy-post images on the (slow, poorly designed flash) website or via Flickr. Instead, be sated with this YouTube provided trailer: