I do agree with you about how gorgeous the movie is. If the messages hadn't been so discordant with my own values, I would have gotten swept up in it, and I did a little anyway. ...Unintended camp is called, according to an art-criticism article I read 15 years go, kitsch. But intention is all about context, and I think you blessedly got to see 300 in the context of an inner laugh track. On its own, that movie took itself much more seriously than Flash Gordon (yay) ever did. And I think a lot of my reaction agin' it is for exactly the reason Hrafntinna said: the timing blows.