Meet The Spartans - Review

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Length: 84 min

Rated: PG-13

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Release Date: 2008-01-25

Starring: Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra, Ken Davitian, Kevin Sorbo, Diedrich Bader, Jareb Dauplaise, Travis Van Winkle

Directed by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Produced by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, Peter Safran

Written by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Visit the movie's Official Site!

Reviewed by Scott Gwin : 2008-01-26 18:17:41

There are funny movies and then there are Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer movies. Generally I’m lucky if their films give me the slightest urge to laugh, but as I sat watching their latest attempt at a spoof I came to realize that the two are actually providing movie-goers an incredibly important service. By showing audiences how excruciating, asinine, nauseating, hateful, unbearable, predictable and downright crappy a comedy can be, it makes us appreciate the good comedies that much more.

Obviously someone out there loves their spoof projects (of which there are four: Scary Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie and now Meet The Spartans) because they make good money at the box office. Or, maybe it’s just the result of brilliant marketing. By seeing all forty-five seconds of slightly amusing material in the trailer, audiences assume the rest of the movie must be pretty funny too, thereby being lured into spending ten dollars on the cinematic equivalent of an enema.

How bad is it? At the theater I had the honor of sitting behind two young teenage guys. I can only assume they are the target audience for the movie since it pushes as far as it can without crossing out of PG-13 territory and banks itself on jokes involving childish homo-eroticism and the word “boobies”. These two teenagers, like myself, spent most of movie yawning or occasionally snickering when the actors managed to do something almost funny. There wasn’t a hearty laugh to be heard through the entire show and, at one point, one of them actually proclaimed in a loud voice “this is stupid”. Normally I abhor people talking out loud during a show, but in this case I was grateful. It needed to be said.

The movie follows the story laid out by last year’s graphic-novel-turned-film, 300. With its highly stylized characters and action sequences, there’s plenty in 300 that could be parodied, but Meet the Spartans seems satisfied to make the easy jokes about the nation being latent homosexuals with painted-on-abs and then spends the rest of the time taking cheap shots at Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and the cast of American Idol (as if that hasn’t already been done to death).

Where it can, the story takes a stab at incorporating other recently released movies, but never once manages to do anything funny or clever with them. Friedberg and Seltzer add references that seem to be there mostly for the sake of having them in there, no matter how stupid the resulting scene becomes. For example, near the end of the movie the Xerxes character, facing defeat, stumbles upon a power cube and transforms himself into a giant robot (which, consequently, has a giant screen on his chest that plays YouTube clips of Chris Crocker wailing over Britney Spears, but that’s a separate failed gag altogether). Xerxes-tron then advances forward but accidentally unplugs himself and dies. Pointless? Yes. Funny? Not really.

In the midst of all of this comes a cast that you can’t help but pity. Carmen Elektra’s performance pretty much sends the solid message “hey, I can’t act to save my life, but if you need someone with big breasts and isn’t ashamed to be hired on that quality alone, I’m your gal”. Diedrich Bader plays his role with a subtle reluctance that suggests he might have signed the contract before reading the script and then regretted it later. And then there’s poor Kevin Sorbo. Are things really this bad for him right now? Did he really need this paycheck to stay afloat?

I have to give Friedberg and Seltzer props for one single moment of comic lucidity. Normally it would have been the least I would have expected from a good spoof movie, but in their case I have to take what I can get. All those over-stylized fight scenes in 300 were ripe for a good parody and one finally happens near the end of the film. Kevin Sorbo (whose presence would have been brilliant if someone competent had been writing/directing) launches into one such slow-motion action sequence where, upon using up the spears on hand, proceeds to turn to other handy weapons including a wet towel which gets the same elegant dance-like treatment as a sword. It made me chuckle, a good feeling that left me wanting to chuckle some more. Alas, the opportunity never came.

At 84 minutes the movie feels short (not that I’m complaining by any means). I suspect there will be hours of material on the DVD that didn’t make it into the final cut; not because the movie couldn’t have been longer, but because it was just too stupid (or offensive) to be included. After the witless and humorless disaster that was Epic Movie I couldn’t conceive how Friedberg and Seltzer could have done worse. Leave it to them to make it happen.

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russell
July 27, 2008 at 01:08

I thought the beginning of the movie was good. But after 10 minutes maybe even less the movie went downhill. Too many pop culture references that were obivious and the gay thing was overused.

I don't think the movie was as bad as people like to say. But it could've been done SO much better.

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jason
July 17, 2008 at 14:41

This movie is crap, no smile on my face just on how stupid it was. Maybe for teens but not for me dont waste you money on this shit not worth watching

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George and \'grant sucks\' are school drop-outs
June 4, 2008 at 15:34

God I really hate this movie. Little to no intelligence what so god-damn ever. You want humor? Watch anything but this. Worst movie ever, eat my shit.

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Moriarte
March 27, 2008 at 18:16

I have to admit I found myself amused by the first few minutes of this crappy film as it did a pretty good job of parodying the original '300' albeit in an almost scene by scene fashion. I liked the scene involving the 'Pit Of Death' up until Britney Spears made an appearance, I tittered slightly on seeing a cat's turd stuck on the face of the sandman (that's right, the sandman), and the fight scene where Leonidas gives a wedgey to one of the Persian soldiers was actually quite good.

Unfortunately the rest of this film was so uninspired, wayward and off the mark that you have to pity the poor fools who came up with this crud. They were obviously trying to parody and cross compare American trash culture with the rigid and principled code and glory of the Spartan people, but all they could manage to do is bitch about how the Spartans were probably a bunch of homosexuals. This film used the homosexual link to provide 95% of the humour in this spoof film but this was particularly surprising as I thought most Americans were either gay themselves or at least find nothing wrong with it...hence all their ass references.....The mind boggles!!

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......
March 17, 2008 at 17:33

This Would be funny.....

For 10 year old Kids who managed to get in to the movie.

It is a very...Well Unfunny movie

Not much more That I can add to that

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aqua_knight
March 16, 2008 at 21:12

Well, the first time you watch any of those movies (Scary Movie, Epic Movie, Date Movie...etc) you might laugh. but the second time gets really boring, and during the third time you wanted to throw something at the TV and say "This is crap!"

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AnduinX
February 9, 2008 at 16:02

Meet the Spartans was one of the worst 'comedy' movies I've ever seen. I made it through the entire movie without laughing once. Toward the end of the movie I felt great anger toward the producer.

Don't spend your money on this movie, even if you're curious as to how bad it really is. Every penny spent on this movie funds more movies like it, and nobody wants that...

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so pissed
February 5, 2008 at 00:44

walked out after 20min the movie just s**ked get a sence of humor ok this movie is not worth it to the pp that like it

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Allen
February 4, 2008 at 22:34

For God's sake, do not waste a penny of your money to see this. I couldn't possibly say anything better than what everyone else has said, but for the sake of all that is holy and good in this world, do not put yourself through this, even out of curiosity. It's curiosity that keeps people like these making movies like this. It's tragic, pure and simple. I was naively dragged against my will, and I can honestly say I would gnaw my arm through to avoid seeing it again. There's just... nothing okay about this movie's existence. You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when Bush was elected for his second term? That confusion and dread? Yeah. It's like that, and there's the same bitter knowledge that you did it to yourself. That is all.

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Anonymous
February 4, 2008 at 22:32

Come on its not that bad.
I thought it was actually really funny and I am NOT being sarcastic.

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meet the spartans was a horrible movie and i greatly regret watching it
February 3, 2008 at 22:25

yes, it was a stupid movie. pretty pointless, and i could tell its no good from the commercial alone.

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...
February 2, 2008 at 14:12

Jim it seems that your sarcasm detector is malfunctioning. CLEARLY these people are joking '10 out of 5 stars' should have given it away. Get a grip man.

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Jim
January 31, 2008 at 21:10

The people that are angry because they thought it was hilarious are acting in typical style. To enjoy such a movie in it's intended comical style means you must be a total f*cking moron. Therefore you read the review - become defensive and act out as a moron would with anger.
Settle down okay - it's just a movie review, you don't have to agree. But I find it really sad for you that you found the movie so hilarious - you unfortunately are the cancer of the cinema going audiences across the world - keeping these useless waste of money, piece of shit films alive. You owe an apology to all the genius indie directors out there who missed out on another chance to do something because too much money was spent on "Meet The Spartans". I spit on this sorta crud and epic movie and the scary movies AND date movie. Why don't they just title all of them CRAP MOVIE and add numbers onto them for each subsequent sequel.
Take me back to the days of Airplane and The Naked Gun!
Jim.

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Watcher
January 30, 2008 at 00:30

This movie sucked heh. I watched it in hopes of getting a laugh but I think I smiled maybe once during it. Warning others to not see it is a good deed.

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grant sucks
January 28, 2008 at 19:10

who the hell does grant think he is. This movie was the best iv'e ever seen. And gant hasn't even seen it. so how the hell would he even know if it sucks. Grant is a loser and just hates all movies in general. I give meet the spartans 10 out of 5 stars. It was the greatest movie of all time. P.S Grant really does suck even if that is he's real name...CHRIS BRAIN

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george
January 27, 2008 at 21:50

i dont know what the hell you guys are talking about. This movie was hilarious and so were all of his other movies. Me beeing spartan say that this movie was not offending Spartans.

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grant
January 27, 2008 at 02:55

Hey scott,
Was there many people that went to see it when you were there. How many do you think? I cant believe people will keep paying to see garbish like this. I saw date movie when it came out on dvd,hated it but didnt know who made it.Then i saw in epic movie in the theatres and if i had known that it was done by the same guys of date movie wouldve seen something else.And now comes Meet the Spartans which i hope to never see in my life. But yet there will be a ton of people that go see it and it rake in millions. Then thanks to everyone that saw it they will make another spoofing movies like Indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull, iron man, batman dark knight, narnia prince caspian,the new harry potter, the new james bond and others. Now im not saying spoofing is not funny. It can be if its in the right hands. I enjoyed scary movies 1,2,3,4. Yes i admit it but jason friedberg and aaron seltzer are not the right hands.
When i heard about meet the spartans i said ill give firedberg and seltzer another go and wait till dvd but thank you for the review scott because now i hope to never see it in my life.

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Witch
January 27, 2008 at 02:54

At least Kevin Sorbo looks as gorgeous as ever.

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