Review of Spartan (2004) by Ben H — 15 Jan 2008

When you have a collection of 500-600 movies, it can be very difficult to actually choose a film. I know I find it difficult and I like my movies. When there's two of you, with different tastes, and one of you is in a strange mood where she can't decide what she wants to watch (hey that would be me), it makes it twice as bad. I've seen it take an hour to choose/agree on a movie. Recently, I've been either watching a series of movies (Aliens), which makes it so much easier, or giving up, and letting him choose. After 2-3 years, of suggesting we watch this movie, it finally got put in the DVD player.

For a fair whack of the movie, I initially thought I was watching Mark Whalberg. NOT Val Kilmer. How do you make that mistake I hear you ask? I have absolutely no idea, I just thought they looked quite alike in it.

Before this film started, I got told quite strictly, that I had to pay attention. If there's something that gets said to put me right off a movie, then that's it. Go for it. If you want to put me off watching a movie, than that's what you say to me.

Where it's nowhere near as incomprehensible as Lost Highway (there's a film to watch if you want to lose two hours of your life that you will never get back, if you want a recommendation), I managed to follow it. Just. I just hated Val Kilmer and I never thought I would say that about Mark Whalberg (hahahaha). He repeated every single line of dialogue, and it really irritated me. Now I realise how I must irritate other people (sorry!), cos I either zone out when they ask me a question, or I quite simply don't hear them. But Val's character doesn't even give the person he's interrogating a chance to respond, he keeps repeating the same question, until my head was spinning.

The story is about the president's daughter who goes missing. There's loads of reasons given for her disappearance - she had an argument with her boyfriend over her hair colour (!), her daddy's the president so she could have been abducted, prostitution (is Amazon going to allow me to put that?), etc. Val is the Secret Service agent sent to look for her. A very driven character, he's emotionless, and just there to get the job done, and won't stop til he gets the job done. The daugher needs to be found before her class on Monday - if she doesn't turn up, the media will be all over the fact she's not turned up. Not good publicity for Daddy who is about to go on the campaign trail. Or election trail. Or whatever it's called.

There's quite a few twists and turns in this movie, which yes, you do need to pay attention to where the film is going. But totally out of the blue, it starts on an army training course, which gives the audience an insight into how dull Val's character actually is, but not much else. Why?

There's also a few things about the movie I was disappointed with. Why was she kidnapped exactly? Daddy was apparently sleeping around on the job if you catch my drift, she had a different mother, the kidnappers had 'no idea' she was the president's daughter - it goes on and on. William H Macy's character didn't have enough screen time, and even then, you had no idea who's side he was actually supposed to be on. The film dips in the middle, and I did find myself getting a bit bored about three quarters of the way through. But for the rest of the time, it does grab and keep your attention. Kristen Bell was actually the shining star of the movie, though she didn't have much time on the screen, which was disappointing, but how else could she have appeared more?

For a film that took me 2-3 years to watch, yes I enjoyed it. It was interesting, totally out there, and different from everything else out there. If you're looking for something different, pick this up. You should enjoy it. I think the casting was wrong with Val Kilmer, I liked him more when I thought he was Mark Whalberg. Just be sure to concentrate. Just don't tell me that I have to concentrate. What's my name? Dumb Blonde. Quite.