Not merely content to give us the worst comedy of the year so far (and yes, that counts ‘The Love Guru’), writer-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer go above and beyond in offering what may be the worst comedy of the decade…if not ever.
Long-standing contributors to the spoof genre, Friedberg and Seltzer date back to ‘Spy Hard’ in ’96 and then jump-starting the genre with ‘Scary Movie’ in 2000. Their directorial reign of terror began with ‘Date Movie’ a few years back and then beat all odds by churning out films progressively worse than the film before. ‘Meet the Spartans’ makes ‘Date Movie’ look like genre staple classic ‘Airplane’ in comparison.
If the math is right, that means that their ‘Disaster Movie’ (coming out in a few months) might literally result in the loss of vision.
Starting with the title which is a take on, what, ‘Meet the Parents’? Ha! Umm…wait, no, not funny and nor the least bit sensible – the pic is one stale joke after another with only a modicum of effort on trying to entertain.
A spoof on ‘300’ of course, we get jokes mostly aimed that direction with the rest despairingly based on any number of pop culture dead horses – Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, ‘American Idol’.
Despite some satisfaction in seeing a pathetic impersonator of Simon Cowell get kicked into the Spartan pit of death, the chuckle wasn’t quite worth the guilt I felt for it afterwards.
Also borderline inexplicable is the reported 30 million budget for the film – Carmen Elektra and Kevin Sorbo getting a little high on their horse these days? We get ridiculously cheap sets, effects, and actors who look nothing like the people their in lieu of…e.g. the aforementioned Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Simon Cowell.
There’s really not much more to say about the film, the storyline such as it is hews fairly closely to the structure of ‘300’ and a few of the actors give it their all but Laurence Olivier himself wouldn’t be able to rise above this garbage disposal of a script.
At least with Blu-ray, there are always the high-definition visuals to keep you watching. A 1.85:1 AVC encoded 1080p presentation, the film looks splendid with nice sharpness and detail. Despite less than impressive sets and effects, everything is captured near flawlessly.
Not necessarily demo material but more than respectable considering the genre and quality of the film.
We get a DTS-HD 5.1 track which is slightly richer than the Dolby Digital 5.1 track and special features that start off with a commentary from writer-directors Friedberg and Seltzer, two featurettes, a gag reel and a trivia quiz (yeah, I won!...and yet I lose as each question I answer right nets me a clip from the movie…boo!).
The Blu-ray is billed as ‘Unrated’ but I noted nothing that wouldn’t fit comfortably within its theatrical rating of Pg-13.
Despite a nice high-def presentation, God help anyone that drops precious gas-prone moo-lah for this pic as its one terribly unfunny joke that lasts 87 minutes. Friedberg and Seltzer need to be stopped and only you have the power.
One of my favorite films of last year, ‘Before the Devil Knows Your Dead’, cost a paltry a five million – this pic conceivably cost us six great film.
Meet the Spartans - Unrated Pit-of-Death Edition [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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