MEET THE SPARTANS review

MEET THE SPARTANS

1/2* out of 4

Rated PG-13

Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer

The next time you're rooting around in your pocket for change, check to see if one of the quarters you fish out is one with the states on the back. If that state is Iowa, you'll see a small log schoolhouse, denoting how seriously we take education here.

I was thinking about that as I observed what I'm percieving to be a rarity in this nation: A Saturday Night showing of MEET THE SPARTANS that was only half-full, and only one person was laughing. Everyone else was aghast in terror that they paid to see something that would have been flunked by remedial English teachers if it were submitted as an assignment. And that one person who was laughing? She was retarded.

No, seriously. She came out wearing a Spongebob t-shirt and a bicycle helmet. I felt bad for a second, because that was what I was assuming as I heard gales of laughter coming from her seat in a mostly silent theater. But then I gave her my after-movie mint that they give out at my local multiplex. I'm glad she had a good time.

Friday, January 25, 2008 was an innocuous day much like any other. But a certain event occurred. And it was an event that shattered the status-quo in Hollywood and now NOTHING is the same.

It was the day that Uwe Boll lost his title as the worst living filmmaker in the world.

Meet your new reigning champs, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, directors of DATE MOVIE, EPIC MOVIE and MEET THE SPARTANS.

What's this movie about? Well, instead of an actual spoof of the movie 300 (with, y'know, jokes). Friedberg and Seltzer actually made a shot-for-shot remake, only with pop culture references and violent pratfalls... Well, even more violent pratfalls.

MEET THE SPARTANS is not a movie. It is a hazardous chemical that causes human eyeballs to melt. As I was watching it, I recalled the vast compaints of egregious shaky-cam in CLOVERFIELD. They said it made them feel nauseous.

THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE WORD MEANS!

The dialogue in MEET THE SPARTANS consist of pop culture references and the wails of the eternal damned. Everyone from Britney Spears to the AMERICAN IDOL judges get kicked into the Spartan pit of death. SPIDER-MAN 3, DANCING WITH THE STARS, AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS, the "Leave Britney Alone" douche and UGLY BETTY are brought up for no other reason than to compete in a BEST WEEK EVER cultural jaggoff..

But ya know what's missing from all this referencing? Jokes. Actual attempts to be funny. They just remake it, congratulating the eighteen-and-under set for being stupid and uncultured. For everyone else (most of whom didn't like all this shit the FIRST time they saw it), the whole MEET THE SPARTANS experience resembles Guantanamo Bay, only without the lovely tropical setting.

I don't really need to go in depth, here, do I? This is the only Friedberg/Seltzer film I've paid to see in a theater, after seeing DATE MOVIE on HBO and missing EPIC MOVIE altogether. The phenomenon that these films make money is similar to the one endemic with Michael Jackson's THRILLER: It's the highest-selling album of all time, but you don't know anyone who owns a copy. You know more about all this than I do, and I'm only here to discuss any new or novel concepts.

One of which being that, after perusing Friedberg and Seltzer's collective body of work, I must confess a kind of admiration. Don't get me wrong, it's a sick and mercenary admiration, but admiration nonetheless.

Because these two men have prospered by constantly underestimating the intelligence of the American moviegoing public. They have figured out a way to spend other people's money every year, like clockwork, to do absolutely nothing. There are no requirements of knowledge or talent to conceive what they conceive. To do what they do. They are rich not in SPITE of the fact that they're aggressively stupid and lazy, but BECAUSE of it. If that isn't the American Dream, I don't know what is. There's a sucker born every minute, and apparently Friedberg and Seltzer are the two to take them all. I congratulate them on this little rigged Shell Game they have.

And in the spirit of rigged gambling, I have a wager for you, whoever is reading this. Next to me on the desk, as I am typing these words, is a printer cartridge and a ream of printer paper. When I am done with this review, I will get the hot sauce out of my fridge, and EAT said paper and cartridge.

And I bet that at about... Maybe noon tomorrow, when I come out of my bathroom with a bucket full of something wet, brown, squishy and stinky, it will be infinitely more filmable than the script to MEET THE SPARTANS.

Any takers?