Meet the Spartans
| Meet the Spartans | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jason Friedberg Aaron Seltzer |
| Written by | Jason Friedberg Aaron Seltzer |
| Produced by | Jason Friedberg Aaron Seltzer Peter Safran |
| Starring | Sean Maguire Carmen Electra Ken Davitian Kevin Sorbo Diedrich Bader Method Man Nicole Parker |
| Music by | Christopher Lennertz |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox Regency Enterprises |
Release dates | January 25, 2008 |
Running time | Theatrical cut 83 min. Extended cut 86 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30,000,000 |
| Box office | $84,172,546 |
Meet the Spartans is a 2008 parody film directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Similar to past movies, such as Scary Movie, Epic Movie and Date Movie, it pokes fun at various movies. Although it references many movies, TV shows, people and pop cultural events, it focuses mainly on the 2007 historical war film 300. The film is rated PG-13 in the US and 12 in the UK for crude and sexual humor throughout, language, and some comic violence.
Plot
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 at the hands of Le Chiffre. Leonidas (Sean Maguire) is then cast out into the wild, and survives the harsh winter while killing a giant dancing 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.
The messenger has 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 simply disliked, ranging from Britney Spears (Nicole Parker) and Kevin Federline (Nick Steele) to Sanjaya Malakar (Tony Yalda), the American Idol judges. 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 (Crista Flanagan), reveals that Leonidas will die should he go to war.
That night, Leonidas and Margo then decide to "pump some iron" before Leonidas leaves for Thermopylae, which in fact is just Leonidas bench pressing his wife one hundred times. Leonidas then goes out to meet the soldiers assembled for his departure, and finds that only 13 (not 300) were accepted in the army, since there were stringent specifications to be accepted (one of which is having a Mediterranean tan). Three among them include Captain, his son, Sonio, and a slightly unfit Spartan named Dilio. Sonio is then nominated as "Sparta's Next Top Warrior". Paris Hilton (also played by Parker), is 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 cheer dances 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 Traitoro to persuade him to send more troops to assist Leonidas. He states that he will finally lose his virginity while using his cell phone to take pictures. However, he reveals publicly that she has not been chaste. The anger at this revelation provokes a symbiote Spider-Man suit to envelop her, mirroring the parasitic symbiote Spider-Man suit in Spider-Man 3. She fights with Traitoro, 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 (which mostly consists of non-existant CGI-soldiers projected on a giant blue screen) fight the Spartans, who refuse to retreat. The battle initially starts well for the Spartans, 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, thrown by Xerxes.
Captain's death enrages 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 the 2007 film Transformers, and harnesses its power to combine with a convertible and turn into "Xerxestron", a parody of Megatron, and plays 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, "Leonidas was true to his word: a god-king did fall ... but unfortunately, right on 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 a hundred real Spartans and several thousand 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 as she leaves drug rehab, causing her to expose her bare groin and fly 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.
Cast
- Sean Maguire as King Leonidas - 300
- Carmen Electra as Queen Margo - 300 / Dennis Rodman / Spider Man 3
- Ken Davitian as Xerxes - 300 / Transformers / Borat
- Kevin Sorbo as Captain - 300
- Jareb Dauplaise as Dilio - 300
- Travis Van Winkle as Sonio - Accepted
- Diedrich Bader as Traitoro - 300 / Spider-Man 3
- Hunter Clary as Leo Jr. - 300
- Phil Morris as Messenger - 300
- Method Man as Persian Emissary - 300
- Nicole Parker as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres and Paula Abdul - Extra, MADtv, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and American Idol
- Ryan Fraley as Jack Black
- Zachary Dylan Smith as Little Leonidas
- Tiffany Claus as Angelina Jolie
- Nick Steele as Kevin Federline - Date Movie
- Ike Barinholtz as Bond Villain, Prophet, Dane Cook (in extended version)
- Tony Yalda as Sanjaya Malakar - American Idol
- Christopher Lett as Randy Jackson - American Idol
- Crista Flanagan as Oracle/Ugly Betty - Ugly Betty / 300 / The Matrix
- Jesse Lewis IV as Ms. Jay Alexander - America's Next Top Model
- Jenny Costa as Tyra Banks - America's Next Top Model
- Belinda Waymouth as Twiggy - America's Next Top Model
- Dean Cochran as Rocky Balboa
- Emily Wilson as Lindsay Lohan
- John Di Domenico as Jack Thompson
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.
Parodies
- 300 : Main Parody
- Spider Man 3:Queen Margo puts up a black Spider Man outfit and starts attacking Traitiro that suddenly became the Sandman
- Transformers: Xerxes suddenly finds the allspark, turning himself into "Xerxestron"
- Stomp the Yard: The dancing scene between the Spartans against the Immortals
- Casino Royale: The torture scene in the start of the film
- Happy Feet: The giant dancing penguin
- "Subway": Just before the scene with the dancing penguin
- American Idol: At the beginning when everyone is singing
Critical reception
The film received incredibly negative reviews from critics. As of May 19, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 2% of all critics gave the film positive reviews and 0% positive reviews from top critics based on 41 reviews with an average rating of 1.8/10; citing consensus opinion on the title as "A tired, unfunny, offensive waste of time ... [which] scrapes the bottom of the cinematic barrel." [1] 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.[2]
One reviewer in Scotland's 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". In London, 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. Phillip Stephens of Pajiba went as far as to describe the films creators Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer as a "debauched pair of fuck-knuckles" and hoped that "both of them die from some form of nutsack-cancer."[3]
Similar angered criticism came from from comedian and reviewer Doug Nagy of TheMovieBlog.com who said that amongst the film's many flaws, it had a derogatory amount of gay jokes, and noted he did not want to see the reciprocation of similar movies, which he felt detracted from the efforts of earnest film-makers because "shit like this gets made", and noted several times "this film fucking sucks". He angrily remarked about creators Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer that "if [he] were Kim Jong-il and a North Korean [citizen] had made the film, [he] would have them killed and quartered by horses in the public square". [4] Some blogs reported people violenty vomiting after leaving the theaters.
Most of the film's criticism consisted of not having many actual jokes and instead having an overreliance of pop culture references[5]. 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.
Box office performance
Despite the overwhelmingly negative critical reaction (the film has a 2% "Rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes[6]), the film opened in top spot at the US box office, grossing $18,505,530 over its opening weekend,[7] 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. Meet the Spartans for the first week came in #1, second week was at #4, then the third week it was #9.
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.
See also
References
- ^ "Meet the Spartans - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
- ^ "Meet the Spartans (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
- ^ "Phillip Stephens - Meet the Spartians Review". Pajiba. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
- ^ "Meet The Spartans Review: TheMovieBlog.com". Themovieblog. Retrieved 2008-07-15.
- ^ "Meet the Spartans - Bottom Line: "300" was funnier". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
- ^ "Meet the Spartans Movie Reviews, Pictures". Retrieved 2008-04-07.
- ^ "US Movie Box Office Chart Weekend of January 25, 2008". The Numbers. Retrieved 2008-01-31.