OK, first of all, unlike most of the people leaving comments here I’ve actually seen the movie.
After reading too many idiotic reviews I was expecting some sort of pro-Western, anti-Muslim propaganda. The overwhelming impression that I got was that the director was not intending to create propaganda of any sort. It’s a highly stylized portrayal of the battle at Thermopylae — an even that is engraved in the historical memory of Western civilization and is the subject of numerous books and poems throughout the ages. It is not a movie with allegories to modern-day politics. The left is up in arms about this movie because the director didn’t water-down the story of Thermopylae with post-modern moral relativism — as is expected nowadays.
The good guys are the Greeks. They are defending their homeland from an invader from the East. I find the people here trying to justify Xerxes’ invasion utterly ridiculous. Let’s not forget that it was the same Xerxes that sacked Athens in 480. The Persian invasion was threatening the place where Western civilization was born. So why the hell is it controversial to portray Xerxes as the bad guy?
I can understand the modern-day Persians being offended. But I can assure you that this movie isn’t aimed against you. I wish more of you actually saw the movie before spouting off about it. If you don’t want to pay to see the movie in theatres then there are easy enough ways of downloading the movie using bittorrent.
To everyone else: this is a well-made movie that is worth watching.
