Basket.

Disclaimer: If you are intending to catch the film/read the book, and are deathly afraid of spoilers, do not read past the first paragraph below.

Well, caught 300 at last yesterday - with Justin, Sean, Roger, Elgin and Zihao. Yes, six guys. Well, if there ever was a guy movie it would be this bloody, testosterone-soaked epic. That was exactly what I expected from it, and that was exactly what I got.

The most faithful movie adaptation of a book I have seen thus far, 300 the movie differs from 300 the graphic novel in only two major aspects: Queen Gorgo (Leonidas' wife) gets a far larger role and a main Spartan villain (the councilman, Theron) is added. Director Zack Snyder (who will helm the upcoming Watchmen) manages, impressively, to turn a graphic novel that takes barely half an hour to read into a gory two-hour epic, striking a delicate balance between that and remaining faithful to the source material.

Indeed, several major scenes are soft, gorgeous tributes to Frank Miller's original panels. I won't say which ones, not here, but they'll be immediately obvious if you have the book. Some scenes, moreover, are improved versions of what appears in the novel; given voice, gravity and dynamism by the magic of film.

The entire film is full of soft lighting and textures, with morning sunshine being a recurring motif. Sunbeams on wheat might well be a device borrowed from Gladiator, but 300 has a lot more to offer than just that. The wall of Persian dead is itself a breathtaking marvel, and the easily-overlooked background scenery a testament to the present power of computer graphic imagery. Costumes are lush and exotic (although the Spartans, unrealistically but faithful to the novel, quite literally virtually lack them), and although the journey through Xerxes' harem can be construed as gratuitous, it is a visual feast and offers up a contrast between Persian decadence and Spartan frugality (the word "spartan", is, of course, even today used to describe frugal and simple living conditions).

But enough of the technical stuff. On to plot, and my opinion is that the director has managed to improve on the novel. His best decision was to greatly expand the role of Queen Gorgo, who gets three lines (albeit one of them being the famous "Spartan! Come back with your shield or on it.") in the graphic novel. In the movie she gets to give a speech to the Spartan council, and a fine speech it is. She also offers a break from all the relentless blood-soaked glory of the battlefield; a break that we do not get in the graphic novel. To cap it off in a most visceral manner, she is pretty good-looking to boot, and even gets a moment of blood-soaked glory for herself. Not going to spoilt that, so watch the movie.

The director's other main decision, adding the Spartan villain Theron, is also a well-advised one. It gives the film some balance, adding a little grey to the monochromatic, Persians-are-all-bad-guys and Spartans-all-good-guys (except the ephors) spiel of the graphic novel. Frank Miller, has, of course, never been known to go for grey areas in his work. He always has clearly defined good guys and bad guys (Batman: Year One being a prime example), with the possible exception of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which portrays a melancholic, morally ambiguous Cold War world. Yet the situation still ends up being a tad trite, what with the classic noble-king-hampered-by-treacherous-ministers scenario playing out. Still an improvement over the slightly too simplistic graphic novel, however.

Other than these modifications, the rest of the film plays out much like the graphic novel does, with major occurences such as Ephialtes meeting with and rejection by Leonidas, his subsequent betrayal, Xerxes' meeting with Leonidas and the dramatic last stand of the Spartans all intact and played out in scenes very similar to the corresponding panels within the novel. Both works end the same way, with Dilios the storyteller ending his tale and then charging into battle against the Persian army at Plataea.

Finally, to praise the cast - who all did stellar jobs. Gerard Butler plays Leonidas exactly like Frank Miller drew him; Lena Headey plays the stately, dignified, tough-as-nails, yet heartbroken and vulnerable Queen Gorgo brilliantly, in the absence of any help from Miller's pen. Rodrigo Santoro was panned in the New Paper, but it is obvious that that particular reviewer has never read the book, because he plays Xerxes just as well as Butler plays Leonidas. His voice, in particular, described in the novel as being "as smooth as warm oil on well-worn leather and as deep as rolling thunder" is exactly what I imagined it would sound like. A slight pity, then, that his lines are virtually verbatim. Dominic West is suitably scheming, malicious and despicable as the villain Theron, and his eventual moment of death will probably be welcomed by many. David Wenham (most famously, Faramir) does well as the storyteller Dilios, although my opinion is that he is too young to be a storyteller of this stature (the Dilios in the novel is a middle-aged warrior). A very strong performance indeed from all the main actors.

A comment on the historical value of this film: it is broadly historical, but the Spartans did not fight in cloaks and thongs, and it is most unlikely that Xerxes was a tall, black Nubian with gold piercings embedded all over his body. Nor, obviously, were rhinoceroses present at Thermopylae, or elephants, either. The novel shows camels, which is just as unlikely. In addition, the real number at the last stand of Thermopylae was not 300 Spartans, but rather around 900 to 1200 Spartans, shield-bearers, servants and Thespian allies - and while it is implied that Plataea was the decisive engagement of the Greco-Persian Wars, that honour actually belongs to Salamis (one of history's very few truly decisive naval battles), where the Athenian admiral Themistocles dealt a devastating defeat to the vastly larger Persian fleet. I did not, however, watch it for the history, but for the action, and there it certainly delivers.

I also wonder just how many people in the cinema actually got the ending - which is a reference to the Battle of Plataea in 479BC, the final battle of the Greco-Persian Wars. Forty thousand Greeks, including the full Spartan army of ten thousand (the only time the full Spartan army was ever deployed), destroyed Xerxes' final army in Greece (his main force had returned across the Hellespont the year before after the devastating defeat at Salamis. As mentioned earlier, however, I tend to think of Plataea as little more than an afterthought; the real damage had been done a year earlier at Salamis, and Xerxes and his main army were already safely back home. Nonetheless, it was a good ending.

In conclusion, anyone who enjoys blood-soaked war epics - this is the perfect film for you. Unless you are under eighteen, of course.