It is a very interesting story, agreed. I think it's obvious the movie (and presumably the novel) is taking a little artistic license when it's got things like mutants with swords for arms and giants (oooooh, that reminds me: in the scene when the giant is brought into the battle, all I could think of was Boromir's line in Fellowship in the Mines of Mordor, "...and they have a cave troll." LOL)

There's all kinds of trash talk on IMDb. One guy insisted he was the authority because he was a "direct descendant" of Leonidas. You can imagine the crap he got for that.