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Meet the Spartans (2008) -
Though I haven't watched them in years and am unlikely to ever rewatch them, I used to have a fondness for parody films. They're not the best and probably miss much more than land in terms of comedy, but I guess I just like the incongruity of seeing out of place celebrities/modern product placement intruding in on the film, especially with films like this which are set thousands of years in the past. While I appreciated the incongruity of what was being referenced in this film, when it came to the actual quality of the comedy of those references, they ranged from mean-spirited (Paris Hilton and Britney Spears) to overlong (the entire "This is Sparta" sequence) to forced (which is technically everything) and the parodies of those celebrities weren't remotely clever. As a whole, I don't think the film got any laughs from me in that department. Now, when it came to poking fun at the eccentricities of Snyder's film or exaggerating certain scenes/characters in it, I was somewhat able to get on board with the film since that's the idea to parodying something, correct? The training scenes of Leonidas beating his son up, poking fun at the nudity/sex scenes in 300, exaggerating Xerxes' piercings, or painting abs onto the Spartans worked well enough for me. While it's not hilarious per se, that's what I want from parody films. There was more potential with parodying the excessive slow motion which they didn't capitalize on though, aside from recreating some of the slow motion effects at a couple points. As a whole though, I mostly found this really boring to sit through and frequently dry of clever jokes to keep me on board with it. I'd still give it some points for the comedy which landed, but everything else dragged it down like a rock.
Though I haven't watched them in years and am unlikely to ever rewatch them, I used to have a fondness for parody films. They're not the best and probably miss much more than land in terms of comedy, but I guess I just like the incongruity of seeing out of place celebrities/modern product placement intruding in on the film, especially with films like this which are set thousands of years in the past. While I appreciated the incongruity of what was being referenced in this film, when it came to the actual quality of the comedy of those references, they ranged from mean-spirited (Paris Hilton and Britney Spears) to overlong (the entire "This is Sparta" sequence) to forced (which is technically everything) and the parodies of those celebrities weren't remotely clever. As a whole, I don't think the film got any laughs from me in that department. Now, when it came to poking fun at the eccentricities of Snyder's film or exaggerating certain scenes/characters in it, I was somewhat able to get on board with the film since that's the idea to parodying something, correct? The training scenes of Leonidas beating his son up, poking fun at the nudity/sex scenes in 300, exaggerating Xerxes' piercings, or painting abs onto the Spartans worked well enough for me. While it's not hilarious per se, that's what I want from parody films. There was more potential with parodying the excessive slow motion which they didn't capitalize on though, aside from recreating some of the slow motion effects at a couple points. As a whole though, I mostly found this really boring to sit through and frequently dry of clever jokes to keep me on board with it. I'd still give it some points for the comedy which landed, but everything else dragged it down like a rock.
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