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I'm also very embarassed to admit that when the Queen killed Theron I raised up my fists and screamed YEAHHH!

Kiera Knightley's mom

I would have prefered cut out, like that goat head in Xerses hare

...For today brings about the release of "300," and it is the "Citizen Kane" of cinematic graphic novels.

This is a movie that revels in a time when men were men and women were women, and the men loved the women but spent most of their time fighting with other men, all the while spouting grandiloquent speeches about duty and country and loyalty, and the glory of a "beautiful death" on the battlefield.

It is excessively, cheerfully violent -- and it is gorgeous to behold. It looks like the world's most sophisticated and expensive video game, and I mean that in a good way.

In this sweeping and epic adaptation of the classic graphic novel from master-of-the-genre Frank Miller ("Sin City," "The Dark Knight Returns"), director Zack Snyder has created a jaw-dropping, surrealistic dreamscape filled with stunning images, simmering and seriocomic homoeroticism, a topless oracle-babe, a sexy queen, larger-than-life warriors, hot love scenes, cutting-edge special effects and battle sequences so ambitious, you sometimes have to laugh at the sheer audacity of the whole thing.

This is a film that never, not for one second, considers taking its foot off the accelerator. Once the battle is joined, it pretty much keeps going until the final frame, with only a few dialogue-driven scenes placed here and there to allow you to catch your breath, turn to your buddy and say, "Are you #%!#$!* kidding me!"

This is the kind of movie that throws babies off a cliff, literally. (Hey -- there's a reason for it.) This is the kind of film that presents battlefield beheadings with the same slow-motion poetry it employs for a soft-core sex sequence, and if you're offended by that, you're at the wrong flick. The blood flies and spurts with such force and velocity that I felt a little like one of those front-row attendees at a Blue Man Group show, where they have you put on a poncho lest you get covered in viscous liquid goo.

...

Though his face is covered with a tricky beard throughout and a battle mask for much of the film, Gerard Butler delivers an honest and three-dimensional performance as King Leonidas, who never strays from his convictions and never hesitates to put himself on the front lines. Perhaps the only stronger character in the film is his adoring wife, Queen Gorgo (the luminous Lena Headey). She doesn't just encourage her king to take on the suicidal task of fending off the Persians, she insists upon on it, telling him, "Return with your shield -- or on your shield." Something tells us she won't be tying yellow ribbons 'round the old Greek columns, waiting for her man to come home.

...

Snyder directs "300" as the tallest of tall tales -- a vivid dream. You want realism and devotion to the hard facts, watch the History Channel. You want to experience the Battle of Thermopylae as a nonstop thrill ride, here's your ticket.

Exactly. /tell that to Pikko. Real violence is more real. Colors gang initiation was more badass than the legendary Spartans?

You want realism and devotion to the hard facts, watch the History Channel. You want to experience the Battle of Thermopylae as a nonstop thrill ride, here's your ticket.