(This review may contain spoilers. Also, contains content not suitable for younger people).
It might be worth noting that I did, in fact, watch 300. It was a number of years ago, but despite the historical inaccuracies, I remember it being very entertaining to watch.
I can say the same about this film. I’m sure that anyone with even a small amount of knowledge of the time period this film was set in could probably name more than a hundred things that were wrong with this film.
If I’m watching a film that’s primarily about battle, it’s not the fighting itself so much as the tactics that interests me. Yes, there were lots of blood and gore in this – but I also felt that it stayed true to the realities of fighting.
I felt that the scenes of the slaves who were forced to man the oars were really effective. One of the things that struck me was the blood on their skin where the chains bit in. That might be a small and somewhat morbid detail, but I personally felt it really brought home the harsh realities of that time.
Artemisia was a villain with an interesting history who was portrayed really well by the actress who played her. This was an example, I think, of a character who could have been awful if the wrong person had been chosen to play her. However, I did feel that it contained the trap I keep seeing nowadays – the fact that every film now has to have a romantic subplot, even when the general storyline doesn’t really call for one. (I did keep calling the main guy an idiot while I was watching this in the cinema. Under my breath, of course).
I felt that the camera work in this film proved particularly effective. There were specific angles that I thought enhanced certain scenes; and I also felt that the slow-motion aspects worked really well.
Although I didn’t actually watch the film in 3D, I did think that there were quite a few areas where that aspect would have been very effective.
For a film set so far back in history, I did think that some of the language used was far too modern. I’m not going to name any examples here, but the language did throw me out a little.
I did think that the actors did really good jobs in their roles. Even the actors I’ve seen in other media didn’t cause me any trouble in seeing them as completely different characters in this.
I can’t speak for the historical accuracy of this film, but the entertainment factor was really high, in my opinion. I’d recommend watching it if you enjoy this type of film and don’t mind something that doesn’t necessarily stay true to history.
Ink of Blood 