Meet the Spartans
Meet the Spartans | |
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Directed by | |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Shawn Maurer |
Edited by | Peck Prior |
Music by | Christopher Lennertz |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 83 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $30 million[2] |
Box office | $84.6 million[3] |
Meet the Spartans is a 2008 American parody film written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.[4] The film is mainly a parody of the 2006 film 300, although it also references many other films, TV shows, people and pop cultural events of the time, in a manner similar to previous films that Friedberg and Seltzer had been involved in such as Scary Movie, Date Movie and Epic Movie. The film stars Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra and Kevin Sorbo.
Meet the Spartans opened at No. 1 in the United States. Despite receiving extremely negative reviews and appearing on several lists of the worst films ever made, it was a box-office success, grossing $84 million on a budget of $30 million.[3]
Plot
A Spartan elder inspects three babies. The first, an ugly, talking baby ogre (Shrek the Third), is abandoned to die for its deformity; while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopt the second, who is Vietnamese. The third, Leonidas, is accepted as a Spartan for his already-present muscular physique and is prepared for kinghood through brutal training. An adult Leonidas is cast out into the wild, survives the harsh winter, and hunts down a gangsta penguin named Mumble (Happy Feet). Returning as king for his inauguration wearing a penguin skin hat, Leonidas sees Margo erotically dancing and asks her to marry him, to which she responds by giving him the combination to her armor-plated chastity belt.
Years later, Leonidas is
After deciding while spending the night with his wife, Leonidas meets the soldiers assembled for his departure to
Deciding to betray the Spartans, Hilton tells Xerxes where the goat path is in return for various gifts and for having her deformed hump removed. Xerxes meets the twelve remaining Spartans and the war begins. Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Queen Margo has several confrontations with Traitoro, as he is the vital vote in sending more troops to assist her husband. Following her address to the council, Traitoro publicly betrays the Queen, who then battles him in a parody of Spider-Man 3 and defeats him using a dust buster. With Traitoro's deceit exposed, the council is united with the queen.
At the
Cast
- Sean Maguire as King Leonidas
- Zachary Dylan Smith as young Leonidas
- Kevin Sorbo as Captain Artemis
- Carmen Electra as Queen Margo
- Ken Davitian as King Xerxes
- Diedrich Bader as Councilman Traitoro
- Travis Van Winkle as Sonio
- Dilio
- Nicole Parker as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Paula Abdul
- Ike Barinholtz as Le Chiffre, Prophet, Dane Cook
- Hunter Clary as Leo Jr.
- Phil Morris as Messenger
- Method Man as Persian Emissary
- Andy Basargian as Brad Pitt
- Tiffany Claus as Angelina Jolie
- Nick Steele as Kevin Federline
- Winter Jones as Sanjaya Malakar
- Christopher Lett as Randy Jackson
- Jim Piddock as Loyalist, Simon Cowell
- Nate Haden as Ryan Seacrest
- Crista Flanagan as Oracle/Ugly Betty, Spartan Woman
- Robin Atkin Downes (uncredited) as Narrator
- Thomas McKenna as Tom Cruise
- Jesse Lewis IV as Ms. Jay Alexander
- Jenny Costa as Tyra Banks
- Belinda Waymouth as Twiggy
- Dean Cochran as Rocky Balboa, Rambo
- Emily Wilson as Lindsay Lohan
- John Di Domenico as Donald Trump
- Jim Nieb as George W. Bush
- Tiffany Haddish as Urban Girl
Release
Box office
Meet the Spartans opened at number one at the US box office, grossing $18,505,530 over its opening weekend,[5] narrowly edging out fellow newcomer Rambo, which was briefly parodied in the credits of this film. The film dropped 60.4% in its second weekend grossing $7,336,595 expanding to 2643 theaters while ranking fourth at the box office. The film grossed $38,233,676 in United States and Canada and grossed $45,787,889 internationally, adding up to a total worldwide gross of $84,021,565.[3]
Critical response
Meet the Spartans was universally panned by critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 2% based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 2.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "A tired, unfunny, offensive waste of time, Meet the Spartans scrapes the bottom of the cinematic barrel."[6] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 9 based on 11 reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike", being the worst received film by the directors on the site.[7] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade C− on a scale from A+ to F.[8]
Variety called it "Lazy, lame and painfully unfunny, Meet the Spartans is yet another scrambled-genre parody."[9] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Writer-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer basically reprise the tired formula from their earlier efforts, which is to throw in as many pop culture references as possible to cover up the lack of any real wit."[10] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times gave it a 1 out of 5 and wrote: "Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the team behind Meet the Spartans, prove that ridiculing other movies is much easier than making your own." Catsoulis said the various audience reactions at the screening she attended summed it up best: Eewwww! Aaarghh! Huh?[11][12] Critic Garth Franklin of Dark Horizons called it "One of the most painfully bad comedies I've ever had to endure, and I've seen the collected works of Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, Ice Cube AND Cedric the Entertainer."[13] The Radio Times said "After enduring the torturously unfunny Date Movie and Epic Movie, one could be forgiven for concluding that the art of cinematic parody was in terminal decline. This latest installment in Friedberg and Seltzer's franchise hammers a final nail into the coffin with an utterly atrocious collection of imbecilic skits... it's junk-food cinema at its worst. One cringes to think what future cultural historians will make of it… and us."[14]
Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly gave it a mixed review, crediting the actors for their efforts but criticizing the script and the already dated jokes, giving it a grade C−.[15]
Most of the film's criticism consisted of not having many actual jokes and instead having an over-reliance on pop culture references.[10] Several recurring gags were criticized for being overused, such as the ambiguous sexuality of the Spartans[9] and throwing various celebrities down the Pit of Death.
The film's score by
Accolades
On January 21, 2009, the film received five nominations for the
Home media
The film was released on
References
- ^ "MEET THE SPARTANS (12A)". British Board of Film Classification. January 11, 2008. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
- ^ "Meet the Spartans (2008) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
- ^ a b c Meet the Spartans at Box Office Mojo
- ^ Meet the Spartans at IMDb
- ^ "US Movie Box Office Chart Weekend of January 25, 2008". The Numbers. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
- ^ "Meet the Spartans (2008)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
- ^ "Meet the Spartans (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved April 1, 2020.
- ^ Joshua Rich (January 29, 2008). "Spartans stops Rambo". Entertainment Weekly.
the movie's CinemaScore was a terrible C- (coming from a crowd that was, not surprisingly 58 percent male and three-quarters under the age of 25)
- ^ a b Leydon, Joe (January 25, 2008). "Meet the Spartans". Variety.
- ^ a b Scheck, Frank. "Meet the Spartans - Bottom Line: "300" was funnier". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
Scheck, Frank (January 26, 2008). "Obvious gags, laugh-free jokes vanquish "Spartans"". Reuters. - ^ Catsoulis, Jeannette (January 26, 2008). "Doing Battle on the Field of Parody (Published 2008)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 7, 2017.
- ^ Gene Seymour (2008). "'Meet the Spartans'". Newsday. Archived from the original on October 16, 2010.
What's the point of making a parody that's dumber than the stuff it parodies?
- ^ Franklin, Garth (January 25, 2008). "Review: "Meet the Spartans"". Dark Horizons.
- ^ Jamie Russell (2008). "Meet the Spartans – review". Radio Times. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
- ^ Clark Collis (February 6, 2008). "Meet the Spartans". Entertainment Weekly.
- Filmtracks.com
- ^ John Wilson (January 21, 2009). "RAZZIES.COM 2008 Nominations". Razzie Awards. Retrieved January 21, 2009.