Meet The Spartans Unrated Pit Of Death Edition

Can a movie find box-office success simply by putting together a gross-out cheap copycat knockoff of a couple of blockbusters, or worse yet, by riding the tide of negative audience backlash when their scandalous product hits the plexes?

Meet the Spartans, an exceedingly vulgar campy spoof of the swords-and-sandals bloodfest 300, did just that, topping the charts in its theatrical debut based primarily on word of mouth blasting the movie.

The demented brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Scary Movie, Epic Movie), Meet the Spartans is calculated to offend and disgust just about anyone. Sean Maguire is Spartan King Leonidas, a gay warrior swishing off into battle with his amorous soldier sidekicks, clad only in skimpy leather undies.

The horny regiment faces off against obese Persian leader Xerxes (Borat’s notorious hairy brawler in the buff, Ken Davitian) and his enemy hip-hop hordes. Meanwhile malicious cartoonish caricatures of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, to name a few, show up to take more abuse from the filmmakers than the Persians.

A bizarre, tasteless orgy boasting celebrity crotches, lowbrow horny gay buffoons gallivanting in lewd leather, and moronic gladiator mayhem. And stomach-churning, cascading bodily fluids galore.

Rotten Tomatoes Rating

The critics consensus at Rottentomatoes was not complimentary. It was rated “A tired, unfunny, offensive waste of time, Meet the Spartans scrapes the bottom of the cinematic barrel.” It scored a paltry 2% rating on the Tomatometer.

One of the sparse bright spots was by Austin Kennedy at Sin Magazine. He said “It’s not very good at all, but I did manage to laugh at some moments of sudden pratfalls and comic violence, but the talkshow reference mentality has to go!”

Another was from Linda Cook at Quad City Times (Davenport, IA). She said “This is supposed to be a spoof of ‘300.’ But ‘Meet the Spartans’ isn’t a satire of anything. It’s just a bunch of body-function-based skits that randomly feature scenes from movies and television shows – and not a single one of them is laugh-inducing.”

Kam Williams, writing here at NewsBlaze, wrote what might be the least derogatory opening.

“Released just last year, 300 was a green-screen epic recreating the bloody Battle of Thermopylae during which King Leonidas led several hundred Spartans in a futile defense of the country against invaders from Persia. Meet the Spartans is a light-hearted spoof of that costume drama which pits a now gay army against a suddenly hip-hop horde of marauders.”

But he only awarded two stars out of five, “Don’t expect anything of depth and you won’t be disappointed by this predigested pabulum. Mental bubblegum for the brain whose cinematic taste lasts only about as long as the viewing.”