Dracula 2000

It had an ok premise, and it's worth watching just because of all the cameos, but it falls apart pretty quickly.
It’s very predictable, and the dialogue is cheesy as hell. Easily ranks among the lowest in the Vampire-movie-genre. How the hell they managed to get Christopher Plummer to play a part in this film is beyond me.

300

I have to be honest, I'd expected to be bored out of my mind during this film. But everybody was talking about it, praising it, so I was curious. The trailer looked cool, but never impressed me much, so when I sat down in the cinema I just thought I was in for two hours of gore, mindless battles and men showing off their bodies.

It took a little while before I got into it. I was however at once liking the visual style of the film. It is a tricky thing to do, without claiming to much of the attention, but the color use worked well with the scenes, and I never found it distracting.

I was eventually fully drawn in to the story. Despite my usual lack of enjoyment for big battle scenes I enjoyed every one in this film. The fact that the battles were split up instead of going on for 45 straight minutes was the main reason for that. Also the way the battles were portrayed, slowed down for some parts, brutal in others, and some with narration. All filmmakers wanting to make a movie featuring an epic-battle should watch this first and take notes, this is the way to do it!

The political side of the story kind of slowed things down, but I didn't mind as Queen Gorgo was such a strong character, and there was one scene where she had me cheering.

All in all I was impressed by this film. Considering my expectations I was amazed. I'd recommend it to anybody, because it was awesome.

The Phantom of the Opera

I actually liked the movie very much. I never really knew much of what the story was or who the players were, all I knew was that The phantom had a thing for Christine, and that he wore a mask.
At times the movie feels a bit long and dregged out. However I enjoyed the film, if only for the use of colors and settings. The black and white introduction was great, and when the theme started playing while the opera house transformed into its glorious former self was just brilliant. I didn't agree with all the insertions of the black and white scenes, the first and last one would have been enough.
I loved the music, I've never been a big fan of musicals, but I really liked Phantom.
I had my doubts about Gerard's singing ability, but that quickly evaporated, really liked his voice. I think everybody did a good job, and I liked the way things were done.

So in short I liked it even though I sometimes felt things were a bit slow gowing.