I'm somewhere in between on the issue. I think it was one of the greatest action movies, but I did think the effects were overused. Despite that, you could really tell that they had long stretches of action that weren't chopped up, which I remember hearing about in a few interviews. The action stuff, even if over-effected, was still really impressive. I wish they'd have messed with it a little less, but I was still smiling sadistically during half of it.
I'll agree that some of the acting was a bit less than I'd hoped, but that isn't to say I was entirely disappointed. I thought the Queen did a great job, and Butler as Leonidas was *fucking perfect*. They nailed that role dead on. It was like he stepped straight out of the comic. He was marvelous, I thought.
Overall I thought it was great, and my main issues were small ones. Little niggles that bugged me a bit. There was a gratuitous overuse of beheading that I thought was cheesy, and I hated the whole scene where the captain's son died. It was just overkill (even though it was awesome to watch him go nuts slaughtering people afterward).
So yeah, overall I was impressed and I thought the movie was cool, and it was fucking *amazing* to watch on the IMAX screen. It was practically built for it. But I still much prefer the comic to the movie for the love of the comic's simplicity. The movie, while faithfully capturing a lot of it, just had too much in it. The story is so simple and the movie just felt like it was too rich for it's own good. A lot of the beauty and drama of the story was crushed under the weight of the content, because the comic, while epic and heavy in a lot of regards, is very light overall. It flows differently, moves with more grace, and the way it's painted changes the way its read. Admittedly, a lot of that would be harder to capture in a movie than something like, say, Sin City, so this turned out probably about like I expected with a couple exceptions. I'll agree with Ender that a better director would have been able to circumvent more of the problems, though.
Still, it was worth the money. I had a good time. Even some of the additions to the story weren't bad. The Queen stuff was pretty good for the most part, and I didn't even mind the way they made the Persians a bit more monstrous. It was a good movie... just not perfect. Still one of the better action movies I've seen in a long time, and like I said, I think a lot of that counts for just how well the action was done. Yes, there was too much ramping and some of the effects were overkill in general, but despite all that you could clearly see down to the bottom... you could look past it and get a good, clear look at how well done the foundation for all the action was. On that level, I'm *still* really impressed.
Or wait for the DVD which will have all that stuff on there.
I enjoyed the movie. I agree some stuff was going just a little too far like the captains son being beheaded. The shot didn't need to be THAT slo-mo of his body falling. We get it already...yeesh.
Funny that you all mentioned the decapitations as being a bit over the top. That was my exact impression after walking out as well.
Anyway, overall I enjoyed it. I thought the Queen/Leonidas sex scene was a bit much, and I also thought the oracle thing was a bit weird, but I was able to look past that.
Oh, and I actually thought the speed up/slow down effects during the battles were cool.