Meet the Spartans (84 mins, 12A) Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer; starring Sean Maguire, Kevin Sorbo, Ken Davitian
Meet the Spartans is a wholly unnecessary, completely mirthless send-up of the recent sword-and-sandal (or spear and leather-posing-pouch) epic 300 about Thermopylae from the comic pasticheurs who gave us Scary Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie and other abominations. Jokes, or rather non-jokes, about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Spider-Man, George Bush, American Idol, Lindsay Lohan et al are thrown in like so many foot-and-mouth diseased carcasses being bulldozed into a lime pit. There are enough homophobic jokes to keep a Midwestern fraternity house laughing for a year.