It was in 2007 that Zack Snyder really made a name for himself, by directing a movie whose look and feel was completely new to movie audiences. To follow up a remake of a horror classic, he went with a film based on the relatively new trend of comic book source material. And while some comics were adapted heavily to conform with the typical visual and tonal cinematic language we’d encounter in popular movies like Spider-Man or Batman Begins, 300 follows the style of Frank Miller’s Sin City, released two years prior.
It’s probably more accurate to say it takes that style and builds on it. There’s a rather specific rhythm to dialogue in comics that was previously scrapped, but Sin City was one of the first to truly embrace this distinctive feeling, making a movie feel like reading a comic more like anything seen before. This was of course aided by visual effects that heightened the sense of cartoonishness (in a good way) to complement the stylized language and mood. 300 picks this up, but gives it a classical flare, with visual moments that would become iconic. Because of its period setting, the style because even more surreal, and enhances the experimental nature of the movie’s aesthetics. This was new territory, and it embraced a spirit of experimentation that has come to define Zack Snyder’s work, and has no doubt contributed to the more conventional yet nevertheless stylized aspects of films like Watchmen and Man of Steel.
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