Main cast: Sean Maguire (King Leonidas), Carmen Electra (Queen Margo), Ken Davitian (King Xerxes), Kevin Sorbo (The Captain), Jareb Dauplaise (Dilio), Travis Van Winkle (Sonio), and Diedrich Bader (Councilman Traitoro)
Directors: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Meet the Spartan is a singularly unfunny and absolutely wretched parody of 300. You know, the movie where Gerard Butler and a bunch of heads pasted on CGI-bodies run around propagating the joys of homoerotic machismo? It’s a movie ripe for some riffing, but unfortunately, the people behind this movie seem to have lost all sense of comedic timing altogether.
The plot somewhat mirrors that of 300, but is taken to new low in terms of gags as it clumsily throws some punches at American Idol and various reality TV shows, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and a few other pop culture fixtures of its time. Each of these gags are flaccid and devoid of wit or ingenuity. It’s only funny if I enjoy watching monkeys throw crap at the wall and seeing whether anything sticks. Some of the jokes – like the pointless dancing and the eye-rolling “bash the children” scenes – just go on and on, maybe just to fill up the airtime to ensure that this movie doesn’t go under the 60 minute mark.
Still, I managed to stay on to the end because Sean Maguire has a nice smile. I know, I’m shallow, but don’t try this at home because this movie is really not worth risking one’s brain cells to sit through.
