Meet the Spartans Review
In preparation for watching Disaster Movie I’ve decided to test my viewing, note-taking, and crap tolerating abilities by watching Meet the Spartans. The copy I watched is the Disaster Movie last place prize copy, which is a used copy of the “Unrated Pit of Death Edition”. I’m not sure where the “unrated” part comes from, as there’s no nudity or swearing, but that’s okay because I don’t think even boobs would have improved the picture much at all. Put a great pair of knockers next to a train wreck, and people will still look at the train wreck. Anyway, on to the movie:
The movie opens with the title (duh) superimposed over a shot of a sepia-toned cliff. An old man stands on the cliff, holding a baby. The narrator (of course there’s a narrator) informs us that the Spartans inspect newborn babies for defects. The baby currently being inspected turns out to be a jive-talking Shrek ogre baby who asks the old man if he can suck on his tits, and then immediately vomits a torrent of green slime all over him. The old man rejects the baby by drop kicking him off the cliff and into the pile of skulls below. The next baby to be inspected is Vietnamese, and the narrator informs us that in Sparta, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gets first dibs on Vietnamese babies. Sure enough, the two of them wander on screen and make off with the kid. And yes, the narrator does refer to them as Brangelina, and yes, this is a rehash of nearly the exact same joke they used in Epic Movie. I’m hoping they use it in Disaster Movie and make it into some sort of bad joke hat trick. The third baby to come along is Leonidas, who has a beard and a six pack. The old man nods and stamps “Inspected by #12” on his butt.
Cut to a few years later, little Leonidas is in training and getting his ass kicked by an old woman. This brings us to the first running joke of the movie: adult on child violence. Pretty much any time a kid appears on screen, there will be an adult punching him, throwing him, shooting him, etc. This sounds absolutely hysterical on paper, but somehow they manage to fuck it up, and it ends of coming across as kind of cruel. Leonidas gets up and punches the woman in the face so hard that her dentures fly out in slow motion. Wonderful.
We cut to several years in the future, where teenage Leonidas, braces and zits intact, is tied to a chair and being tortured in scene straight out of Casino Royale. Why is he here? I don’t know, he just is. Le Chiffre calls him “Mr. Bond”, Leo points out that he’s not Bond, and testicle trauma ensues. He gets whacked with the rope a few times, and then Le Chiffre gets down under the chair and starts pummeling his balls with a spoon. Then, in a truly bizarre bit of product placement, he holds a can of Pedigree brand dog food up to the camera, rubs dog food all over Leonidas’ balls, and brings over a small dog who immediately starts chowing down on them. I’d love to know what thoughts went through the Pedigree board of directors heads when they first saw footage of where their money went. The scene ends with Leonidas screaming in pain as the dog eats his testicles.
We cut again to a shivering teenage Leonidas in a snowy mountain pass, which will later become a totally different mountain pass, and then every other mountain passes because evidentially the producers thought that a movie where 50% of the film takes place in mountain passes only needs one mountain pass set. He scrounges for food and finds a Subway sandwich, making this the second piece of product placement in under a minute. Not a good omen. He’s being hunted by a jive-talking penguin, making this the second jive-talking anthropomorphic creature in two minutes. Want to know a good way to tell if a movie is going to be physically painful to watch? It’s when you’re only two minutes into the movie and it’s already repeating jokes. The penguin warns Leonidas “prepare to meet Anna Nicole!”, because that bitch totally deserved to get taken down a peg for dying. The penguin tackles Leonidas, farts on him, dangles his balls in his mouth, and then takes an enormous shit on his face. In case you’re keeping track, our tally so far is two pairs of testicles, one fart, one face shitting, one head-to-toe vomit drenching, and one child being punched in the face. Time: three minutes. Not bad. Leonidas stabs the penguin and returns to town as a man. Here he meets Margo, played by Carmen Electra. She wanders into the scene sucking on a lollipop and bending over every which way, which I’ll admit is a hell of a lot more entertaining than puke and shit. Leonidas proposes marriage, and Margo gives him the key to her chastity belt, thus repeating a joke Mel Brooks did better 15 years ago in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Now it’s several years later, and King Leonidas and Queen Margo have a son. Naturally, Leo is beating the everloving shit out of him. He headbutts him, gives him a pile driver, hits him with a flying elbow, and chases him around with a chainsaw. Leo and Margo finally team up and shoot the kid unconscious with paintball guns.
Now comes the big running theme of the movie: gay jokes. The Persian messenger shows up, and Leo greets him with a kiss. The messenger is played by Phil Morris, aka Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld, who points out that dudes kissing each other is pretty gay, and then adds “not that there’s anything wrong with that.” This is the closest the movie ever comes to making a subtle joke. Gay Joke #2 happens as Leo holds his hand and skips off to the Pit of Death for further negotiation. There, they meet Traitoio, played by Diedrich Bader (!), reading a copy of Traitors for Dummies, and leaving all subtlety in the dust. Gay Joke #3 happens as the messenger says the Persians actually don’t need Sparta because they already have West Hollywood and San Fransisco. Leo boots him down the pit anyway, triggering a bizarrely long chain of events that makes no sense. Leo is walking away when he hears singing coming from the pit. He turns around and sees Britney Spears sitting on a barbers chair, holding her baby, shaving her hair, and singing. Leo boots her down the hole, and the camera zooms in on her crotch as she falls, baby and all. Child body count: two beaten, one dead. Kfed runs in to look down the hole, and he gets the boot too. So does Sanjaya Malakar, who sings “I’m not gay!” as he falls (that’s gay Joke #4). Then the Americal Idol crew show up and start criticizing Leo’s executions. They too go down the pit. Ryan Seacrest shows up, wets his pants, and commits suicide by flinging himself down the hole. Leo turns on a switch that says Garbage Disposal, and a terrible special effect spins the falling celebrities in a circle. And with that, the goddamn scene finally ends.
Leo goes to meet with some deformed prophets, making Gay Joke #5 as he draws them battle plans that look like a cock going in a butt and describing the maneuver as a reacharound. That’s five gay jokes so far. Time: 16 minutes. The good news is that the movie is already ¼ over. The movie sucks, but at least it has the courtesy to be short. The prophets meet with the oracle, who turns out to be Ugly Betty, who whispers “Fo’ shizzle, my nizzle!” As embarrassing as that is, it could have been worse: an alternate take included on the DVD has her describing the series finale of The Sopranos. It’s a good thing I took notes as I was watching, because it’s only been 24 hours since I’ve seen it and my brain’s been busy working overtime erasing every memory I have of this movie. Going through my notebooks is giving me little ‘Nam flashbacks. “Oh, right, fo shizzle reference! I had forgot about that!”
The next day Leo stands naked at his window, and we get a zoom up on his crotch. Fortunately for us, he has no penis. No, I don’t know what the joke is either, I’m just repeating what happens. Leo and Margo look up Meet the Spartans on “Ain’t It Cool News” and find out that the movie is a rip-off of 300. Then he bench presses her. I hate this movie.
We get a shot here of one of Margo’s tattoos here, and this is where the movie blows it pop culture load. She has Leonidas written on her, but as the camera pans down we see other names like Kobe Bryant, Dr. Phil, Tara Reid, and Borat. That’s it, that’s the entire joke. If just reading the name Tara Reid causes you to laugh, congratulations, you have an excellent career in writing parody movies ahead of you.
The next day the army gathers and prepares to head to battle. More gay jokes ensue, and we hear their battle cry of “to infinity, and beyond!” It’s hard to imagine, but the scene actually gets less funny than that. The captain’s (Kevin Sorbo’s) son Sonio (I’ll admit I chuckled a bit at that) shows up carrying a big box of fudge, because his wife knows how much he likes to pack fudge. I cannot fucking believe that joke would appear in a movie in goddamn 2008. Then Tyra Banks from Sparta’s Next Top Model shows up and shoves her ass at the camera, which is of course replaced by an enormously fat woman’s ass. Then all the men in the army hold hands, singing “I Will Survive” as they skip off into the sunset. The scene mercifully ends, saving us (temporarily) from endless gay jokes and screen-encompassing fat asses.
The army arrives at the Hot Gates, where they perform a Gatorade commercial. A hunchback shows up, hiding its face behind a shield. Leonidas pushes the shield out of the way to reveal… Paris Hilton. Paris does several Paris-y things like talking on a cell phone, and some other things I forgot and I’m not turning the DVD back on to find out. Finally she starts talking to the Spartans and asks to join their ranks. Leonidas grabs her spear and makes a few gay jokes. They refuse her, and Paris runs off, camera zooming between her legs to give us our second crotch shot of the movie.
We finally get to some action as the Persian army shows up, led by Method Man. Seriously. I’m not joking, go on IMDB and look it up! “Prepare to stomp the yard!” yells Leonidas, triggering an absolutely endless dance-off. One side breakdances while the other looks on unimpressed, then the other side starts dancing. This goes back and forth a few times, then someone goes over to an iPod mounted to some speakers and turns on The Humpty Dance. Then they go back to dancing. At one point Method Man breakdances on roller skates. Leonidas puts on a black wool cap and starts sliding around the floor. This just goes on and on. My notes from this portion of the movie say things like WON’T END, or FUCKING ENDLESS, or KEEPS GOING, or JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. You know it’s bad if I’m writing in all-caps by hand. It turns out this scene is actually only four minutes long, but four minutes is an eternity when you’re watching people doing “funny” breakdances. Eventually the Spartans win, as determined by Dancing With the Spartans, and they proceed to drive the Persian army off the cliff. This leads to an impressively accurate recreation of the scene in 300 where the army goes over the cliff in silhouette. However, when we cut back to the close up of the scene, something happens that’s so fucking stupid that I can’t believe is real and I didn’t hallucinate: it turns out the Persians are actually going off the cliff voluntarily. There’s even a diving board. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” shouts one as he swan dives off the board. I swear I’m not making this up, this actually happens.
Remember the Gatorade commercial from six minutes ago? It happens again, but this time it’s a Budweisser commercial that has even more gay jokes than the Gatorade one. Don’t worry, we’re 40 minutes in, we’re into the final act!
Xerxies shows up, played by the fat guy from Borat. I’d use his actual name, but the narrator actually calls him “the fat guy from Borat.” He offers surrender via a round of Deal Or No Deal. Leonidas says no deal, which naturally leads to an army vs. army “Yo Mama” contest. The Persian army is being led by a sassy black woman, which is refreshing because out of all the characters talking like sassy black women in this movie, she’s the first to be either black or a woman. The armies take shots at each other’s mamas for about as long as the breakdancing contest went on, which is way too damn long. The Spartans win, and Xerxies stands on his throne and delivers a Dentine Ice commercial. I’m not sure if these events are related, it just kind of happens.
Back in Sparta (yes, a secondary plot kicks in 2/3 of the way through the movie) Traitorio and Margo are about to have sex. Traitorio ejaculates prematurely and cockroaches climb out of Margo’s panties. “I have crabs” she admits. Let’s just move on to the next scene.
Paris Hilton shows up at Xerxies’ camp. The camera pans to two dogs humping for no reason at all. Paris offers information on a secret passage through the mountains in exchange for Xerxies curing her hunchback. Turns out it’s a bit zit, and popping it causes a gush of pus to send Xerxies flying across the room. That leaves every major body secretion covered, in case you were playing Body Fluid Bingo.
The Spartans are sitting around drinking coffee from a cart when a horse messenger not actually riding a horse, just making horse-riding motions, rides into the scene. The problem? One of the army members has accidentally poked his own eyes out. “It’s just a scratch” he says, leaving every Monty Python fan in the audience screaming in rage. Leonidas sends the blind guy for reinforcements. Moments later they find themselves surrounded by archers. Okay, “surrounded” is a bit of a strong word. There’s maybe a dozen archers total. This makes Leonidas so mad that steam literally comes out his ears.
Back in Sparta, Margo is worried she may lose her Queen title and her Nintendo Wii if her husband’s army is defeated. She goes to see the town council, leading to the absolute stupidest scene in the movie. She enters in slow motion, doing her stripper walk like when we first saw her. The old men on the council run up to her waving dollar bills and catcalling. The movie hits its nadir as and old man shoves a fistful of bills into the camera and yells “boner alert!”
Margo asks for reinforcements, Traitorio is a traitor to her, and this makes her so mad that she turns into black Spiderman from Spiderman 3. The narrator even identifies the movie for us, in case we got it confused with all the other movies about superheroes wearing black alien goo suits. Traitoro turns into Sandman, and Margo punches him through the belly. This is actually a pretty good special effect. Not great, but pretty good. Then she punches him in the balls to hard they come out his mouth. This jokes was also in Epic Movie, but we’re so close to the end of this movie that I don’t care any more. Margo knocks him over and belly flops on to him, turning him into a pile of sand. A cat comes out of nowhere, farts, and then poops on Sandman. Then Margo cleans him up with a dust buster. A council member finds Traitorio’s phone, sees Xerxies in his “top five” and decides to send the reinforcements.
Finally, we come to the big fight. The Spartans and the Persians charge each other and they all fall over. Kevin Sorbo stands up and yells “I’m gonna go Hercules on your ass!” Everything goes in slow-mo as Leonidas runs through the Persian army. He takes a long, approving gander at a guy’s spear, he whips a guy with a wet towel, he gives someone a purple nurple, and he sends someone flying off screen with an atomic wedgie. It’s not funny in the slightest, but it’s silent, which thankfully means we don’t have to listen to any godawful dialogue. The slow-mo ends as Ghost Rider rides out on to the battlefield for no reason whatsoever. Sonio puts him out with a fire extinguisher, and he disappears for the rest of the movie. Then Rocky Balboa punches Sonio’s head off. Needless to say, this also happened in Epic Movie. Kevin Sorbo kills him by stripping him down to his adult diapers and injecting him with botox. Now the movie parodies Grand Theft Auto as a San Andreas tattoo appears across Leo’s belly. The car and guy from Aqua’s Barbie Girl music video pulls up (really), which Leo carjacks. Then he dances. Then he gets back out of the car and runs around shooting people with an uzi while a map and score counter appear on the screen. Xerxies tries to run away, but trips over the “Transformer cube” (as he puts it). This turns him into Xerxiestron, who has a tv in his chest that plays the “leave Britney alone” YouTube video. Not a parody, the actual video. This excruciatingly painful scene ends by ripping off the end of The Naked Gun 2 ½, with Xerxiestron tripping over a power cord. He smushes the Spartans. That means it’s almost over!
One year later, the blind Spartan shows up with a new army. He leads them to Malibu, where they run into Lyndsay Lohan, who’s just leaving rehab. They bowl her over, and the camera flies up her panties.
THE END!
ROLL CREDITS!
Running time: 67 minutes
The credits play over a video of the cast singing “I Will Survive” on American Idol. They do the entire song. Then the credits continue over a black background as something ominous happens: there are credits for characters that didn’t appear in the movie. Close credits, it’s time for: more movie! A barrage of cut scenes follows, the Spartans eating at Hooters, more child beating, and a Dodgeball parody. Donald Trump uses pruning shears to cut down Spiderman, who uses her web to pull of his hair. George W. Bush gets kicked down the pit. Ellen DeGeneres gets kicked down the pit. Tom Cruise gets kicked down the pit. Dane Cook gets the five point palm exploding heart technique… and then gets kicked down the pit. Finally, we get another Yo Mama faceoff.
THE END!
ROLL CREDITS!
Finally the credits finish a whopping 18 minutes after the actual movie ends. Finally, I can stretch my legs, go take a walk, and…
Cut to Rambo. No, goddamn it! We were so close! “When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy… as dancing!” Cue dancing.
THE END!
Credit running time: 19 minutes