300

In history we learn of the Battle of Thermopylae, and we learn of its one of history's greatest last stands. And a true tale of human spirit and determination and that anyone willing to fight for something to the very end, will be willing to fight to the death for it. There have been many movies and books writen about the battle and how it played out over the years and though this is not the most true to history version of the story, infact as historical record goes, its pretty far off, but its most definately the most fun to watch. The chaos of battle as it rages, the thrill of defiant battle, all of it! This is both the most manly movie I've seen in years and has the most visually pleasing images sence the final battle with the Orks in Lord Of the Rings: Return of the King, a masterpeace if there ever was one. It won't win any awards saddly given the whole stuffy nature of the oscar commity and all, but who gives a crap about them anyway, anyone that said The Departed was the best film made last year is wiggity whack on the black side jack.... word.

The story is told by Dilios, a Spartan soldier over a campfire who regails his friends and fellow soliders with the story of King Leonidas the brave and mighty king of sparta who rose up though a harsh life and became king through determination and never backing down. He is a strong, powerfull and respected king among the city states in the greek empire as well.

One day, a messanger is sent ahead of a persian army advancing into greece and demands the king pay tribute and swear to serve King Xerxes, a mad persian warlord who once had a straight of sea whipped for defying him (true story, not made up btw). The Spartian King is enraged, offended and insulted at this group before him demanding he bow down to another man and surrender his kingdom. His responce is to kick the messanger party into a massive spike bottomed pit screaming "this.. is... SPARTA!!". Following this, a meeting with The Oricle states that the spartians should not march to war against persa's armies. Still enraged Leonidas gathers 300 soliders and "goes for a walk with his personal bodyguards", they encounter others along the way that have heard of their quest and join them, they decide the place for their final stand is a narrow cliffed area called Thermopylae (the name means "Hot Gates" in exact translation). The 300 and their allies ready themselves for battle. And thats where the fun begins.

The story itself tells an interlacing of spirit, determination, defiance, betrayal, love, battle elephants and heads on sticks. There is alot of lovely shot action scenes that though take up most of the movie in some form or another, are not just blood, guts, arrows and swords for no real reason, this is a truly excellent take on battles and life and just what fire was inside the human soul in days long gone, as well as some really cool action lines that were infact true to the story as well. "Our arrows will blot out the sun" "then we shall fight in the shade" is a line thats been passed down from every version of this story going back to the very begining.

If you don't remember this story in history, or forgot how it ends and plan to see the movie, I won't spoil anymore of it for you, it is an incredable work of mordern movie magic and really should be seen to be loved for what it is, a historial movie hidden as an action movie that will inspire you to do so many things. Its really worth the ticket, so get off your butts and go see it.

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Laz

Ghost Rider

Being a fan of Ghost Rider going back to when i was just a lowercase me, I was that loner kid that everyone left alone because Ghost Rider was for people that were spooky and into dark and evil things, I guess thats what happens when you come of age in the era of the Xmen's Dark Phoenix Saga instead of 10 years earlyer in the late 70s when John Blaze and his demonic "partner" Zarathos went around on a flaming motorcycle kicking ass and taking names wile chewing grape hubba bubba bubblegum, well sept for that time they created the 1970s version of The Midnight Sons and Ghost Rider went all gay for that golden alien guy, but that doesn't mater because in the 90s, John Blaze was forgiven and made awesome and this time, when they made The Midnight Sons, they did it right, and Blaze didn't have a mancrush on anyone, he just kicked ass next to the new Ghost Rider.

But thats a side point. Onto the movie itself! Because after all thats what we're here for right? The movie. Ok here is what you need to remember first about this, if you are a longtime fan of Ghost Rider, take everything you know, and forget it, or if you can't do that, just lock it away somewhere you can't get to it till after the movie is over, because though it had no real base in the comics other then characters, this movie is by no means bad. I might even say visually, its incredable, but for me to do that, I would need to actually give into the fanboy "wee a childhood hero is on the big screen!" urges, and well, I'm saving those for when The Transformer movie comes out in July, so deal for now.

Ok so here is the basic plot, the movie starts in the old west with a naration by a character we later discover is Caretaker, talking about what the Ghost Rider is ("The Devil's Bounty Hunter") and that his job is to collect contracts for souls and such, and it tells how one rider ran with a contract knowing it would make the devil to powerfull, now we come to the present day and oru story, long time comic book lover Nick Cage is John Blaze (possably the only hero he could play aside from Ironman or Hank Pym, but anyway..), Blaze is the greatest motorcycle stunt man in the US, women wanna sleep with him, men wanna be him so they can get women to sleep with him, the whole deal. Johnny's dad Barton Blaze is dying of lung cancer, and as Johnny thinks he would sell his soul to the devil for his father's revitalized health, the devil appears and sort of tricks Johnny into signing the contract with blood from a cut finger. The next day Barton wakes up and is fine again, completely cancer free. Only to be killed later wile preforming a motorcycle stunt infront of a massive crowd. The Devil again appears and tells Johnny he doesn't need distractions like love and family and such, Johnny gets mad and next thing you know, his girlfriend is "sent away" by her father under fear that Johnny's a bad influance.

Johnny and his girlfriend (Roxanne) meet up again years later, after Johnny has rizen to even more sucess in the stunt show business, she is working for a tv station and is sent to interview him, they start back up from there. Go Johnny you mackdaddy you! Anyway, at this point we meet Blackheart, the "son" of the devil. He raises some fallen angels and they plan to take on The Devil for control of hell or something. The story kind of gets lost in here. The Devil vows to awaken The Ghost Rider in Johnny Blaze and send him to kill Blackheart and his fallen angels. Johnny meets up with the four of them by chance and thats when he first becomes The Ghost Rider, the first transformation sequence is really rather cool though seems painfull, they never really explained in the comics if the transform hurt any of the ghost riders that I recall, this was an interesting plotpoint. This is also where Ghost Rider gets his chain and kills one of the fallen angels.

The rest of the movie is kind of a mashed up blur of Blaze dealing with both The Devil (called Mephistopheles instead of Mephisto) and Blackheart, wile trying to keep it from his girlfriend and learning from Caretaker, who is an old man that takes care of a big graveyard, you later find out he is the ghost rider from the opening part of the movie. It all needs up to a big CGI fight between Ghost Rider and Blackheart, and it kicks much ass and takes many names wile blowing bubbles with its gum. Then the credits role after a nicely writen ending, and thats it.

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad movie, for what it is, Ghost Rider is a great movie, its striking visually, if you take the context of the story out of the comic and its mythos, its a really good story, even if there are alot of blurry confusing moments and some strange dangling plotholes and odd comedy bits, but thats not uncommon or really bad by any means as well. My problem is just that well, growing up a fan, and seeing how most comic movies, though changing things for legality reasons, retain some escence of the comic or the general history, Ghost Rider does not. It jumbles up the stories of all The Ghost Riders (John Blaze, Dan Ketch, Michael Badilino) and kind of peacemealed them together with out seeing where things were ment to go. The motorcycle belongs to Vengeance (Michael Badilino), the outfit and chain and Penance Stare belong to Dan Ketch (the second ghost rider), and Caretaker's shotgun is really ment to be the "the hellfire special" John Blaze's shotgun that shoots hellfire from Blaze's return in the 1990s, and Caretaker is a member of an ancent order that watchs over The Ghost Rider and The Midnight Sons, not Carter Slade (the late 1960s hero called The Ghost Rider and later The Phantom Rider who had no superpowers at all btw), and there is no mention at all of Nobel Kale when speaking of former Ghost Riders, just to name just afew.

I will however say, you should not let these things and the others that are wrong with this movie stop you from seeing it, for what it is, a completely new take on Ghost Rider and its mythos, this movie really is good, and visually its excellent. So as I said if you're a long time fan, just turn off that knowlege or ignore it and let this movie do what its ment to do, entertain you, because it will.


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Laz