The buzz has been good on director Zack Snyder's film "300", about the last stand at Thermopylae of 300 Spartan soldiers during the Persian Wars, based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. In the wave of comics to screen adaptations, this is a bit of an unusual one.

The verdict from our sources at the test screening was two thumbs aggressively up:

"We'll soon forget Snakes. 300 is the next Snakes on a Plane. Its the next film the net is going to go monkey-nut-bananas for. Except, it's actually good whereas Snakes isn't. Apparently. On purpose. And 300 doesn't have Samuel L Jackson - but it does have Gerard Butler."

Having read the graphic novel, and seen the trailer, I think I can safely say that people looking for action, great set-pieces and pathos will come out more pleased than history-buffs. In the current climate, a work based on this particular page of history could hardly be politically correct, no matter the angle taken. But this is self-consciously pro-West, anti-(Middle)-East. And it'll be interesting, to say the least, to see how it is received.


The official trailer for the film has now been released on the net. And you can go to Apple's site and watch it in the streaming QuickTime resolution of your choice. Or you can right-click and save the trailer to your harddrive in QuickTime format by using these direct links:

QuickTime medium resolution trailer

QuickTime high resolution trailer

QuickTime highest resolution trailer

If you're having trouble getting the video files to play, you can open them in the excellent cross platform media player VLC, which can be downloaded for a number of operating systems here.

Watch it, then let us know what you think.