Spoof films show no sign of slowing down, and Meet the Spartans clearly shows the genre needs a reboot. Actually Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the writer-directors of this movie can be blamed for pushing out mediocre and outright crappy spoof films in the past few years. When done properly, spoof movies offer guilty pleasures such as Airplane! that cleverly satirized the disaster movies.
Meet the Spartans is a take on the ultra-violent (and stylish) movie 300. As the heroic king Leonidas must battle the invading Persians, he is joined by his most elite 13 (instead of 300) Spartans and the Persians bring along Ghost Rider, Rocky, Transformers and even Paris Hilton. Clearly no material was left behind, as an early battle is straight out of You Got Served (and the other dancing-gang movies).
Jokes fall flat almost all the time, and you’ll be glad the movie is only 80 minutes long, as more runtime would be cinematic torture. Still the movie finds time for 2 musical numbers set to I Will Survive, playing on the whole homoerotic vibe of 300 and the Spartans in the original source material.
It looks like their next target is the disaster genre: here’s to hoping that they find better materials and better writers.
Rating: 10%
Madonna may be past her glory days, but she still remains relevant in the music scene. Her latest album since 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor tries to be more urban than disco with pretty good success. Produced by Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and the Neptunes, Hard Candy feels definitely modern. Pharrell Williams’ sudden stylistic changes take some getting used to, but Madonna handles them well. This incredibly upbeat album features no ballad whatsoever, and it is plenty of artists other than Madonna. There are 5 tracks with Justin Timberlake, and Kanye West even joins the party in "Beat Goes On".
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