This was… awful. The comic was a mixed bag; Frank Millar’s love of one of the nastier societies of the ancient world (does anyone reading this really need it explained to them that the Spartans were not exactly representative of the best of ancient Greece? I mean, when your treatment of slaves is crap compared to ancient Athens, you’re pretty shit) and incredible gaffes (Athens are boylovers, hurf, durf. You can write all the defences of that line you like, Frank, but it’s monumentally stupid in the context of Spartan and ancient Greece generally) was balanced by his usual good art.
The movie has no real redeeming features.
The heavy metal soundtrack and sub-Gladiator fight sequences, the painfully unnecessary slow, lingering shots of nothing in particular, the mediocre acting (can Leonidas keep a consistent accent? I think not!); all these things combine to make it one of the worse films I’ve seen in a while.