I haven’t seen “300,” although my daughter said it had amusing violence. I just can’t get into the semi-animation thing. I think it looks totally fake.
We have “300 Spartans,” from the 70s, on DVD.
The key to getting past that is that what you are watching is the story being told to motivate the Spartan soldiers right before the Battle of Palatea a year later (which they won). So you're seeing it through the eyes, imagination and embellishments of the speaker, such as Leonidas defending against a giant Xerxes, not just a man. It's also a film adaptation of a graphic novel, and those tend to be a bit over-the-top.
It was OK. Mrs WBill liked all of the Beefcake in it. The stab-and-slash held my interest for a few minutes, but got awfully repetitive.
Was it factual, or even a well-told story? Not hardly. Worth 2 hours the next time it's on cable, maybe, if you've got nothing else to do, nothing better is on, and your ISP is down so that you can't surf FR.
Not worth spending anything more than that. :-)