300 (2007) 2 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Michael Fassbender, Tom Wisdom and Rodrigo Santoro. Music by Tyler Bates. Director of photography Larry Fong. Screenplay by Zack Snyder & Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon. Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Directed by Zack Snyder. Rated R. Running time: Approx: 117 minutes

If 300 is the future of filmmaking, then it is a mixed blessing.

For as directors spend more time fussing over their computers, less attention is given to the actors who merely become extensions of some blue- or green-screen technological hocus-pocus.

What movies will gain via technology could come at the cost of one of the most important components of filmmaking — spontaneity, especially from the performers.

For how can there be room for improvisation or some creative on-the-spot decision when every shot is planned down to the last pixel?

And that is exactly why 300 is such a problematic venture. Filmed in a warehouse, the sets, landscapes, heck, even some of the people and animals, were created in a computer. The movie captures exactly the dark atmosphere director Zack Snyder wanted.

Everything is so precise, so calculated — so cold.

300 is based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, itself inspired by a 1962 movie, The 300 Spartans, that Miller saw as a child.

The movie centers around the battle of Thermopylae in which the Spartans staved off an invading Persian army of hundreds of thousands in an attempt to delay them while the rest of Greece rallied their forces to meet the invaders.

The Spartans were killed, but their courage inspired Greece’s other city-states. At least that’s what the history books tell us.

As director Zack Snyder sees it, Spartans were the Klingons of ancient times. They loved to fight. From birth they were trained for battle. A Spartan warrior lived to die a glorious death.

So when word of the invading Persian horde reaches Sparta, King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) defies the city’s council as well as its prophets and takes 300 of his bravest to block their progress.

Since the movie is based on a graphic novel, the dialogue has a comic book ring to it — a lot of explanation points, a lot of pontificating about honor, death and glory.

Butler either is whispering his words, or shouting “Spartans!” so often that you’d think you were at a Michigan State pep rally.

It all sounds like Braveheart-lite.

Plus, Tyler Bates’ ponderous, militaristic score adds its own punctuation to the proceedings.

The battle scenes are brutal. Blood splatters like rain in a monsoon. Limbs and heads are hacked off. And these are the sequences in which the CGI work comes to the fore; sequences are purposely slowed down, then speed up. You almost wish you had a remote in your hand.

But it all lacks a visceral quality. Ironically, the computer effects make it so clean, so ballet-like, so unrealistic. Battles should be chaotic and messy, not choreographed like an MGM musical.

I am not deriding the movie. On the contrary, I was impressed with its technique.

But I also was saddened. The movie lacks the unexpected, that unscripted moment that is the essence of true moviemaking.

The craftsmanship of 300 is superb. It just lacks soul.

Bob Bloom is the film critic and DVD reviewer at the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at [email]bbloom@journalandcourier.com[/email] or at [email]bloomjc@yahoo.com[/email]. Bloom's reviews also can be found at the Journal & Courier Web site: [url]www.jconline.com[/url]
Other reviews by Bloom can be found at the Rottentomatoes Web site: [url]www.rottentomatoes.com[/url].