Meet the Spartans

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Meet the Spartans

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer
Produced by Jason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer
Peter Safran
Written by Jason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer
Starring Sean Maguire
Carmen Electra
Ken Davitian
Kevin Sorbo
Diedrich Bader
Method Man
Music by Christopher Lennertz
Cinematography Shawn Maurer
Editing by Peck Prior
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Regency Enterprises
Release date(s) January 25, 2008
Running time Theatrical cut
84 min.
Extended cut
87 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $30 million
Gross revenue $84,172,546
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Meet the Spartans is a 2008 parody film produced and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Similar to past movies, such as Scary Movie, along with its spin-offs Epic Movie and Date Movie, it pokes fun at various movies in a juvenile manner. Although it references many movies, TV shows, people and pop cultural events, it focuses mainly on the film 300. Its title itself is based on the movies Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. The film is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor throughout, language and some comic violence.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot (or lack of)

The film opens with a Spartan elder inspecting a baby which resembles Shrek, he then proceeds to kiss it as the narrator paraphrases the words of Dilios about the Spartan selectiveness of their citizens. The baby vomits on the inspector and is then rejected and punted off the hill. With the next baby in hand, the narrator says if it is Vietnamese, Brangelina gets first dibs. Baby Leonidas is then inspected, having a six-pack, biceps, and beard from birth. He is accepted as a Spartan and prepared for his kinghood through his childhood training, from fighting his grandmother to enduring James Bond-style torture. Leonidas (Sean Maguire) is then cast out into the wild, and survives the harsh winter while killing a giant penguin.

Returning a king for his inauguration ceremony, Leonidas sees Margo (Carmen Electra) dancing and asks her to marry him, to which she responds by giving him the combination to her chastity belt. The film then fast forwards to where the story begins, opening with Leonidas training his son, until Captain (Kevin Sorbo) informs him that a Persian messenger (bling and all) has arrived.

Those messenger come to present Xerxes' demands for Sparta's submission. Leonidas arrives to greet the messenger in the Spartan way (high-fives for the women and open mouth tongue kisses for the men). After growing angry with the messenger's disrespect, Leonidas kicks him, the messenger's bodyguards, and then several other people he just plain disliked, ranging from Britney Spears (Nicole Parker) to Sanjaya Malakar (who proceeds to say "I'm not gay" on his way down) and the American Idol judges (who don't like his style) into "The Pit of Death". As Leonidas walks off he turns to a column, that has a switch that reads "Garbage Disposal", and flips the switch causing the celebrities to spiral to their "death".

Resolving to face the Persians, Leonidas visits the Oracle, proposing an "erotic-sounding" strategy to repel the numerically superior enemy after offering the priests various skin-care lotions for guidance. The Oracle, Ugly Betty, says some well known lines as in "Save the cheerleader, save the world" from Heroes and "Douchebag says what" Leonidas responding with a "What?" Then, the Oracle reveals that Leonidas will die should he go to war.

That night, Leonidas and Margo then decide to have sex before Leonidas heads out (which in fact is just Leonidas bench pressing his wife one hundred times). Leonidas then goes out to meet the soldiers collected for his departure, and finds that only 13 (not 300) came to the call of war, three among them being Captain, his son (Sonio), and a slightly unfit Spartan named Dilio. Sonio is then nominated as Sparta's Next Top Warrior.

The 13 hold hands and skip behind Leonidas to Thermopylae, where they meet Paris Hilton (also played by Parker), whom they rejected from joining their army due to her mild deformities.

Leonidas and his platoon soon face off with Xerxes' messenger and his Immortals, beating them in a dance contest (similar to the male-performed cheerdances in Stomp the Yard) before driving them off a cliff. Xerxes (Ken Davitian), impressed, personally approaches Leonidas and attempts to bribe him in a Deal or No Deal fashion. Despite the soldiers encouragements, the Spartan king declines, saying that he will instead make the "God King" fall. The Spartans then face the Xerxes army in a "Yo Momma" fight, ending with a victory in spite of Dilio having his eyes scratched out.

Though victory seemed to be in the Spartans' grasp, Paris Hilton betrays the Spartans and reveals the location of the goat path to Xerxes, having been promised her hump removed among her various demands. Using a CGI army, Xerxes meets the 12 remaining Spartans and the war is on.

Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Queen Margo sexually submits to Traitorio to persuade him to send more troops to assist Leonidas. However, he reveals publicly that she has not been chaste - the anger at this revelation provokes a black Spider-Man suit to envelop her (mirroring the 'evil' black Spider-Man suit in Spider-Man 3) and she fights with Traitorio (who, in line with the parody, becomes the Spider-Man 3 villain the Sandman). Margo wins the battle with a vacuum cleaner - and Traitoro's treachery is revealed, whereupon Sparta agrees to send more troops.

However, the Spartan decision to send troops comes too late, as Xerxes and the Persian army get ready to fight against the 12 Spartans, who refuse to retreat. The battle initially starts well for the Spartans (with increasingly silly fighting techniques) but the tide turns as the Persians introduce their secret weapons: Ghost Rider (who is quickly defeated) and Rocky (who kills Sonio but gets killed by the Captain). The Captain then gets killed by a spear.

The rage at his Captain's death riles Leonidas, and the battle sequence switches to a GTA format as he runs through the Persian Army and corners Xerxes. While running away, Xerxes finds the Allspark (from Transformers) and harnesses its power to combine with a convertible and turn into "Xerxestron" (a parody of Megatron), playing both the Rick Roll and "Leave Britney Alone" videos to prove his "godly power". But "Xerxestron" ends up delivering on Leonidas's promise to "fall", as his power cord disconnects and he falls forward, crushing the surviving Spartans under his bulk. Thus the narrator concludes "And just as Leonidas promised, the God King Xerxes did fall--but unfortunately right on top of them!"

The blind Dilio, who left prior to the final battle, eventually returns to Sparta to tell of Leonidas' final moments. A year later, Dilio leads a force of 100 real Spartans and several thousand more CGI ones to defeat the Persians, but the blind warrior ends up going the wrong way and leads the Spartans to Malibu. They end up crashing into Lindsay Lohan while she was coming out of rehab (again), causing her to expose her bare crotch as she flies off screen.

The film ends with a musical number set to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" performed on American Idol by all of the characters in the film. It also spoofs Britney Spears' VMA's comeback performance. As the credits start rolling, it is followed by additional scenes not shown in the movie. (possibly deleted scenes)

[edit] Cast

Four of the actors in Meet the Spartans also appeared in Epic Movie. Carmen Electra played Mystique, Jim Piddock played Magneto, Jareb Dauplaise played Nacho Libre, and Crista Flanagan played Hermione Granger.

[edit] Critical reception

The film received incredibly negative reviews from critics. As of May 19, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 2% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 41 reviews.[2] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 9 out of 100, based on 11 reviews — indicating "extreme dislike or disgust" and being the worst received film by the director on the site.[3] One reviewer in The Sunday Herald gave the film a score of zero, while an Australian newspaper review described it as being "as funny as a burning orphanage". The Times reviewer Wendy Ide suggested that the producers of the film were not aiming for 'laughs' but "a simian grunt of recognition from an audience that must have been practically brain-dead to fork out £10 to see a film that can’t even master the concept of out-takes?". Critic Daniel Etherington said "The comedy in this film scrapes the bottom of the barrel so vigorously it digs a hole right through into the ground." Currently, this film is the lowest-rated of the 2008 film season.

Most of the film's criticism consisted of not having actual jokes, but more of pop-culture references[4]. Several recurring gags were criticized for being overused, such as throwing various celebrities down the Pit of Death or the ambiguous homosexuality of the Spartans. The over extended end credits were also criticized.[citation needed]

[edit] Box office performance

Despite the overwhelmingly negative critical reaction (the film has a 2% "Rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes[5]), the film opened in top spot at the US box office, grossing $18,505,530 over its opening weekend,[6] narrowly edging out fellow newcomer Rambo, which was briefly parodied in the credits of this film. By February 21, the film had grossed roughly $40 million worldwide, breaking even. The film grossed $38,233,676 in the United States and Canada and grossed $45,787,889 in foreign countries adding to an international gross of $84,021,565. The film was marketed towards pre-teen and young adult audiences.[7][8] Meet the Spartans for the first week came in #1, second week was at #4, then the third week it was #9.

[edit] Parodies

[edit] Movies (and film characters)

[edit] Songs

[edit] TV shows

[edit] Commercial ads

[edit] Celebrities

[edit] Video games

[edit] DVD release

The film was released on DVD on June 3, 2008. It was released in a "Unrated Pit of Death" Edition and a PG-13/theatrical release of the film, as well as a Blu-Ray release. The UK release is set to be on August 18th, 2008 according to Amazon.co.uk. The theatrical cut will not include extras but will include widescreen and full screen versions on one dual disc.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ From: Parentpreviews.com [1]
  2. ^ Meet the Spartans - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
  3. ^ Meet the Spartans (2008): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
  4. ^ Meet the Spartans - Bottom Line: "300" was funnier.. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
  5. ^ Meet the Spartans Movie Reviews, Pictures. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
  6. ^ US Movie Box Office Chart Weekend of January 25, 2008. The Numbers. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
  7. ^ Moviegoers glad to 'Meet the Spartans'. CNN.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
  8. ^ Moviegoers glad to 'Meet the Spartans'. CNN.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Cloverfield		 Box office number-one films of 2008 (USA)
January 27, 2008		 Succeeded by
Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert