Cotter wrote:
Hey Jon, I just saw MEET THE SPARTANS.  Absolutly terrible, I didn’t walk out on
it, but its was really stupid.  Barely any comedy.  It was all just one Cheesey
Rap Video.  It may have been one of the worst parady movies I have ever seen.
Only Mel Brooks knows how to do those well.  Welcome to movie hell
 

Meet the Spartans - Dir. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer 2008

I just don’t get parody movies sometimes. On the surface, it seems like a good idea: take a film that’s popular and make it funnier. Well, maybe not the most original way to make a movie, but there’s some potential there. Cotter’s right–Mel Brooks has done some pretty funny things with this formula. Anyway, the rash of parody films that have come out after the success of Scary Movie have, in my opinion, just gotten weird. Not weird in a good way like Pecker or Putney Swope, but weird in a bad way like a discolored, oddly shaped mole. For the little good they offer, I doubt that many people would have too much of a problem with simply removing the majority of the genre.

The Plot: If you’ve seen 300, you get the gist. If not, watch 300–it’s awesome.

What Makes it Watchable: There are a couple good gags in the movie. The Spartan men greet each other with kisses, while greeting a woman is done with a high five. That’s funny. Watching Kevin Sorbo literally prance around is pretty fun. Actually, Kevin Sorbo does a good job in this film. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the guy do a bad job–ever. Anyone who didn’t like Kull The Conqueror needs a reality check. The biggest problem with Meet the Spartans is that its humor relies on silly pop culture references and taking things beyond the level where they are funny. Having the main character battle a penguin instead of a wolf to prove his manhood could be pretty funny, but the crap the penguin says is so distracting that it’s impossible to enjoy the scene for what it is: a soldier fighting a guy in a penguin outfit. Really, it could have been hilarious. And the pop culture references are terrible. If you’re gonna bag on Rocky, you better make it good; and there’s really no point making jabs at things like American Idol, Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears. Why don’t we go ahead and beat up some wounded birds or set some orphans on fire while we’re at it? Maybe we can kick some dead horses for good measure?

Hopefully this movie and many of the others like it are just a lapse in our collective reason. With any luck, we’ll wake up a few years from now and forget that swill like this ever got made.

No Averted Eyes, No Necessary Breaks, 2.5 out of 10

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