MEET THE SPARTANS
HEADLINE: Meet the StupidityTITLE: MEET THE SPARTANS
Quality: * Acceptability: -4
SUBTITLES: None
WARNING CODES:
Language: LLL
Violence: VV
Sex: SS
Nudity: NN
RATING: PG-13
RELEASE: January 25, 2008
TIME: 84 minutes
STARRING: Diedrich Bader, Kevin Sorbo, Jim Piddock, Method Man, and Sean Maguire
DIRECTOR: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
PRODUCERS: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer and Peter Safran
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Arnon Milchan
WRITERS: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
BASED ON THE NOVEL/PLAY BY: N/A
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox
CONTENT: (PaPaPa, HoHo, AbAb, FR, LLL, VV, SS, NN, A, M) Very strong immoral pagan worldview with strong homosexual content and a king is considered, somewhat mockingly, a "god"; 33 obscenities and two light profanities, plus jokes about passing gas and excrement; strong violence, mostly absurd, includes killing, a more graphic (without blood) depiction of a decapitation, implied killing of unwanted newborn babies, hitting an elderly woman, and father mercilessly beats up a 5- or 6-year-old boy to toughen him up (the boy is not hurt but the scene is a sick attempt at humor spoofing the movie 300); depicted homosexuality when two men shown kissing once, sexual lyrics in songs, and implied adultery, promiscuity and male/female homosexuality; partial upper female nudity, rear female nudity, nude woman covered up with two slices of tomato and a slice of pizza, "mock" Spartan men are barely clothed, rear male nudity, men in leather "bondage" clothing (depicting homosexuality), woman's genital area is blurred out (Unrated DVD will likely show this explicitly), and images of other scantily clad women; brief beer and alcohol use in two scenes, and man says father was an alcoholic; no smoking or drug use; and, treason, men trade insults and movie makes of celebrities and their personal issues (e.g., Brittany Spears, Lindsay Lohan, etc.), including a stab at the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
GENRE: Comedy/Parody
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Older teenagers to young adults
Please address your comments to:
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman/CEO of News Corp.
Peter Chernin, President/COO of The Fox Group
Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, Chairmen/CEO
Fox Filmed Entertainment
20th Century Fox Film Corp.
10201 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone: (310) 369-1000
Website: www.fox.com
SUMMARY: MEET THE SPARTANS is another lame spoof of recently released movies, "front page" celebrities and popular television shows that fails to deliver on humor or decency. The acting, writing, directing, and cinematography all fail miserably and, beside the twisted, and often disgusting, attempts at humor, the movie simply is not funny or even remotely entertaining.
IN BRIEF:
In MEET THE SPARTANS, a comedy spoof, the Spartan hero, Leonidas, armed with nothing but leather underwear and a cape, leads a ragtag group of 13 (not 300) Spartans to defend their homeland against the invading Persians. The Persian warriors include Ghost Rider, Rocky Balboa, the Transformers, and a hunchbacked Paris Hilton. Meanwhile, at home, the wife of Leonidas does what she can to help her husband, including using her sexual wiles.
Besides "spoofing" other movies, imitating reality TV shows, and mocking modern celebrities, there is no "rhyme or reason" to this movie. It's purely nonsensical and not very funny. Anyone would be stretched to find any true entertainment value in the movie. The PG-13 content includes plenty of offensive, inappropriate material. Plenty of partial sexual nudity, promiscuity, homosexual behavior, foul language, and ridiculous levels of stupid comical violence are all brought to the table to earn some laughs. The movie fails miserably. The other highly offensive part of the movie is its complete lack of quality or production values. Thus, most viewers coming out of the theater will wonder why they wasted their time and money on MEET THE SPARTANS.
