Meet The Spartans Directed by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer. 84 minutes. Opens Friday (January 25). Rating: N
Meet The Spartans is yet another tiresome yearbook parody from Scary Movie scribes Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In this lame rehash of 300, every mildly funny headline recently entered into popular culture – from Britney to Brangelina – gets a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, and then maybe even a blatant “Get it?!”
The remaining attempts at humour rely on slapdash citations that run the gamut from big box-office movies (Shrek, Stomp The Yard, Transformers) to popular television (Deal Or No Deal). At the centre of it all is Sean Maguire’s flagrantly effeminate depiction of Leonidas. Stretching out the obvious homoerotic subtext of 300, Maguire’s performance becomes an unrestrained, crudely repeated gag, which assumes that we didn’t catch the intimations of Gerald Butler’s codpiece the first time we saw it.
