‘Meet the Spartans’ Is Cinematic Terrorism!

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 9, 2008

I may not be Catholic, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not into flagellation. Not only did I subject myself to the cinematic terrorism that was Meet the Spartans when it came to theaters in January. I plowed through the unrated DVD to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

But like a 15-year-old Yugo in a junk yard, there’s nothing there useful to anyone.

What cheeses me off so much about movies like Meet the Spartans is that they give spoofs a bad name. I grew up with the ZAZ brothers, who were responsible for The Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane!, Top Secret and the Naked Gun series. Those movies are hilarious. And let’s not forget the seminal Mel Brooks films of the 70s and 80s that set the stage for such fare.

But a few years ago, two would-be comedy writers got a gig writing for the Scary Movie series (not a bad set of films in themselves), and they spun off their own special line of spoof films. The result were garbage movies like Date Movie, Epic Movie and now Meet the Spartans.

It’s not unheard of to have a DVD play better at home than it did in its theatrical run. Unfortunately, Meet the Spartans is as painful and torturous as it was in the theaters. Only it’s worse. This crap has just invaded your home. Hide the women and children because these movies will make you stupider just by watching them.

One of the benefits of unrated DVDs is that you get more content in the home video release. Even if a film is terrible like Meet the Spartans, you can hold up hope that the film might give some more raunchy moments, some well-placed nudity or at least some more content than you saw in the theaters.

If you’re expecting any of this from this unrated DVD, you’ll be sorry. I didn’t notice a frame of difference between this and the theatrical cut. They didn’t even unbleep the f-bombs used in the various sketches. Perhaps the special features are unrated and give us something appeal.

Oh, you would only hope. Unfortunately, the special features are just as unfunny and painful as the movie itself.

Meet the Spartans tries to be irreverent and relevant to pop culture by simply referencing films. Its general story is a rip-off of 300, replete with homoerotic jokes and bad urban references. The biggest problem with this film is that it lingers on jokes that might be funny if they flew by. But a five-minute Stomp the Yard face-off with the Spartans and the Persians becomes unfunny very fast. If that wasn’t enough urban references, the scene comes back with the two sides flinging “your mamma” insults at each other.

The filmmakers of Meet the Spartans figure their audience is so stupid that they have to point out who Ugly Betty, Ryan Seacrest, Ghost Rider and “that fat guy from Borat” are. And in case you didn’t realize why Carmen Electra is suddenly dressed in a black Spider-Man outfit, the narrator explains that she’s “much like Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 3.”

With silly movies like this, sometimes there’s redemption in the special features. Unfortunately, these elements will make you hate yourself just as much as the rest of the film. The commentary includes the directors and the cast who endlessly gush over each other’s brilliance and pump Nicole Parker (who is woefully unfunny except for a pretty spot-on Ellen impression) to be the next uber-commedienne.

Additional special features include a ridiculous pop culture trivia game that the same level of difficulty as a People magazine crossword puzzle (and includes all the shots of people falling into the Pit of Death, if you didn’t get enough of that in the film), a lame gag reel, a tour of the set with the Dane Cook impersonator, a spotlight on the homoerotic training sessions and a feature that allows you to jump to the music scenes.

Be a smarter person. Avoid this movie at all costs.

THE UPSIDE: The disc comes in handy as a coffee coaster.

THE DOWNSIDE: Every frame of the film.

ON THE SIDE: The pooping penguin scene was the last one filmed.

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