Typical sword-and-sandal epic (surprisingly not of the Italian muscleman variety) that's big on battles and small on character development. Sparta's King Leonidis (Egan) and his band of 300 warriors defend the mountain pass at Thermopylae against the much larger force of effete Persian king Xerxes (Farrar) in 480 B.C. Richardson is dignified as an Athenian military advisor but Egan is as stiff as the brush in that Spartan helmet.