Like 2005's Sin City, 300 is an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, and the use of green screen and post-production fiddling means the "graphic" is brought effortlessly to screen. The result is a visually slick punch in the eyes. Pretty stunning, especially when you consider that the majority of the film was shot in a studio.

This stylish look adds one level of cool, but combine this with a story about some mega-hard Spartan soldiers (300 of them) standing up to an army of thousands, then add violence, a selection of large battle animals, PEOPLE SHOUTING LOTS and slow-mo battle scenes, and you've landed in the territory of "way cool".

For all its lavishness, director Zack Snyder (responsible for the frenetic remake of Dawn of the Dead) keeps the reins tight, and this is how it wins. Battle scenes are chaotic, but rather than splurging on fast-editing craziness, Snyder focuses in, with scenes following one Spartan mincing his way through enemy after enemy, limbs flying off in various stages of slo-mo and animated blood spraying the heavens at every slice. It's not too silly to be another nonsense flick for teens, but doesn't take itself so seriously that it becomes another overblown epic, a la Alexander / Troy etc.

Some critics have complained about the film's historical inaccuracies, but really this is a film based on a comic, featuring monsters, an enemy who is literally a giant drag queen, and a goat-headed man playing a flute. To try and pull this film up on anything remotely factual is a futile task.

Not that 300 isn't flawed. The plot's a little thin on the ground, the dialogue unremarkable, and if you tried to find any subtext you'd come across a frightening array of ideals (the Spartans are so powerful because they throw away their disabled babies and there's a disturbing correlation between evil invaders and darker skin colours). But, hey, this isn't trying to be anything other than a stylish graphic novel adaptation, and it greatly succeeds.