I saw 300 last night. It was pretty outstanding. It's another one of those "no-real-sets" movies, where the entire thing is shot against green-screen, and just like Sin City, which was done the same way, it's super-stylized and ultra-heightened.
There's no real plot to speak of, beyond this: Sparta is a land of bad-asses who will NEVER surrender or show weakness, and Xerxes is a god-king who wants them to surrrender and show weakness. It's basically a bunch of battle scenes, but the art direction is so mind-bogglingly good that you can forgive the lack of story and the corny dialogue. The trailers and YouTube clips don't do the film justice, because trailers don't linger lovingly on an image. The film does. There are plenty of times where the action slows to an almost-freeze frame, so you can marvel at how gorgeous it is.
It's unbelievably violent, but done in such an unrealistic way that it doesn't get nauseating. I've also heard that people are treating this as a metaphor for the War on Terror. Some people say Xerxes is Bush and some say Leonidis (King of Sparta) is. First, you must consider that the movie is based on a book from before Bush was in office. Second, if you can't tell if the filmmaker is comparing the hero or the villain to our president, then it's not a very good analogy. Third, it's a war story. That doesn't automatically mean that it's SUPPOSED to remind you of the one we're in now, but of course, when you see a movie, or read a book or look at a painting, you bring with you your own thoughts and experiences. Most of our thoughts, regarding war, are connected to Iraq right now. That's it.
I don't think this is a deep, philosophical movie. It's simply a beautiful, blood-filled good time.