January 31, 2008

Meet the Spartans (PG-13)
The sepia-toned graphic novel come-to-life 300 along with some other detritus of the last 11 months of pop culture are tiresomely spoofed, Epic Movie-style, in Meet the Spartans.

Juicing up this on-purpose cheapskate-looking, Saturday Night Live-like re-imagining of 300 are former Hercules Kevin Sorbo, a Queen Gorgo-like character played by Carmen Electra (the Dorothy Lamour of the Epic Movie/Scary Movie/Date Movie movies) and a bunch of dudes with painted-on abs. Just like in 300, King Leonidas (Sean Maguire) — who learned to be a warrior as a child by battling a fearsome, red-eyed penguin — must take his brave band of soldiers to meet the mighty Xerxes (Ken Davitian) in battle. Only this time, Xerxes isn’t a shimmering bronzed giant but the fat guy from Borat, which, in case you don’t instantly recognize him, the movie actually tells you in a voiceover.

There are a few times when the movie’s narration actually explains the visual joke (we’re told that Electra is filled with rage, just like in Spider-Man 3, as a black Spider-Man costume wraps around her legs) or a character actually openly states his motivation (“I’m evil,” says the treacherous Senator Traitoro, played by Diedrich Bader). Stranger than the usual gag in this kind of movie wherein humor is replaced simply with recognition of a scene or character from another movie, this practice of openly explaining the joke is bafflingly weird. Am I watching the movie or some kind of extended version of the pitch for the movie? If the joke (which is usually achingly unfunny to begin with) requires this much explanation, is it really worth it? It’s like having someone use bar graphs and charts to diagram the punchline in a knock-knock joke.

Beyond this beyond-meta quality of Meet the Spartans, the movie is just a tedious litany of moderately homophobic sight gags and poop humor but without the giggles that the word “poop” alone can extract. Although, and I don’t know if it’s Stockholm syndrome or just a weak moment, but the “a chest-waxer says what?” joke did make me laugh. D+

Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and some comic violence. Written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, Meet the Spartans is an hour and 24 minutes long and is distributed in wide release by 20th Century Fox.