Review of Meet the Spartans (2008) by Fozzy — 08 Mar 2014

This movie is chock full of terrible humour, if it can be called that. We know this. We knew this before the movie came out, we knew this during its theatrical run and, six years after its release, we still know this. As a comedy, this film fails on all counts, because it's brutally unfunny. This film represents the very worst of American comedy. This is comedy that's gone through liposuction, and is suffering the immediate after-effect. It's painfully boring, painfully unfunny and painfully painful.

And what makes this even worse is the fact that Seltzer and Friedberg could actually be... talented. Bear with me for a moment, let me explain. Look at this film. While the humour and the parody (i.e. the reason we're watching the movie) fail, this film is competently made. The camerawork's quite good, as is the lighting, and I think, if it wasn't a comedy movie, the writing could be acceptable. If Seltzer and Friedberg were to sit down and try to write a decent story with decent dialogue that relied in no way on humour or wit, it would be decent.

It wouldn't be astounding, but it'd be decent. If they pushed the actors far enough, they could deliver good performances, I'm sure of that. I seriously doubt that all of the guys in this film are actually bad actors. Greg Sestero isn't a bad actor, as much as The Room will make you think otherwise. And I think a lot of the cast of this film could give decent performances. Not great, mind you, but decent. I think, if this movie were different, not a parody film but an actual movie, it would be decent. Certainly not great, probably not good, and maybe not even average, but it wouldn't be as absolutely god awful as this was. This film is a failure on almost all counts, and shouldn't exist.