To become a Spartan man a boy must die. The dying of the boy starts early. In America's No. 1 movie this week about events in Greece before the time of Alexander, the movie starts with a Spartan boy getting the snot smacked out of him by the fist of a large man as hard as he can. This is training. There is no mercy. The boy gets up and circles the man, waiting his chance to attack again.

If you can stand the thought of watching a grown man smash his fist into the face of a ten-year-old boy, and have the boy roll once in the sand and get up looking to fight again through a blood-soaked swollen eye, then everything else about 300 will make sense. Spartans are what Flyers fans used to think of themselves. I saw at least one women in the matinee audience for 300 on opening day at The Bridge, but the audience was 99 percent male, each with a date, a certain Ms. Tess Osterone.

You've heard by now that the movie is a hit, a surprisingly huge hit. 300 surpasses all expectations, both in size of audience and in tanker trucks of blood shed. If there is a message in this movie is it "live honorably; die gloriously" Especially when the dying comes at the hands of despicable invaders from a land of mutants and eventually, ayatollahs. The Persia that attacks Peloponesus is peopled by a giant metrosexual king, ghastly scarred Immortals, The Hills Have Eyes monster humanoids and obese crab-clawed executioners. In terms of bad guys, the noble Greeks are met by millions straight from the gates of hell. It's like Braveheart meets Freddie Krueger. In his first face-to-face meeting with his bejeweled Persian king Xerxes, the Spartan King Leonedes (Gerard Butler, above) even seems to adopt an amused Sean Connery Scottish brogue. Dominic West (McNulty on The Wire) plays the duplicitous Spartan villian in a key role, which explains why he was missing from most of last season's The Wire on HBO.

See 300. It's awesome. And bring a date. (Tess is always available).