300 - 2007

It's hard to review this without dipping liberally into the bag of superlatives. This is not a tame movie. Quite possibly the bloodiest movie I've ever seen. Incredibly violent and you have to know that going in. Also, this movie fails to make even the slightest nod to the (modern) idea that war is the worst thing in the world. Kind of a shock, I don't remember the most recent war movie that didn't have an aside about the pointlessness of violence or somesuch. That it's based on history makes it that much more shocking.
It opens with a look at the city-state of Sparta. It's a violent place where boys are cruelly shaped into warriors. Personal indepence is high with the Greek importance on the individual. A messenger from Persia (modern day Turkey) is requesting that the city-states of Greece join their empire or be brought in under force. King Leonidas of Sparta can't submit and the war is on. He takes a force of 300 warriors north to narrow valley they call Thermopylae ('the hot gates'). If he can force the Persians to attack where they can't surround them, they can delay them so the rest of Greece can counter them.
Lots of fighting ensues. The fighting isn't really gruesome because it's not all that believable. It's more like a video game. I'd be shocked if this movie didn't become a huge favorite amongst the military, especially the Marines. In a related note, there is an enormous amount of eye candy for the ladies (or non-traditional men) in this film.
It's hard to admire Sparta and their lifestyle but at a critical point in history they really did an enormous service to what has become Western Civilization. The Persians would have snuffed out democracy and the idea of individual rights. Everything that we hold dear in our liberal democracies came from that root. Maybe it would have popped up elsewhere without the Greeks but it's impossible to know. It would be wrong for us to dismiss the warrior ethic. This movie acknowledges that.