(Review originally written at 16 October 2008) Yes, amazingly enough I have to conclude that this was the best Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer directed movie I've seen in my entire life. It doesn't mean that this movie is exactly brilliant though. It's incredibly lame, features embarrassingly bad and unfunny moments and is basically a movie purely made to cash in. Simple fact is that as long as these movies are making money, more like them will likely get made and released. And this movies are making big money. Every time a Friedberg/Selzer parody gets released I see it somewhere in the top of the box office lists. I really don't understand this. Don't people by now know who Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are and what type of movies they make? I'm never telling people to boycott movies or film-making but now I'm simply begging everyone to stop and pay money to see these type of movies, it's the only way we can stop them from being produced. Power to the people! Yes, I know I'm also still watching these movies, so I probably look guilty as well but at least I'm not paying any money for it to do so. The movie is titled "Meet the Spartans", so yes it indeed is mostly a spoof of the movie "300" and it follows basically the same plot line and type of characters but as you could expect from a Friedberg/Selzer the movie is spoofing tons of other recent successful movies as well, as well as some famous movie and TV celebrities. Like always the movie is bombarding us with this. Joke after joke is being put in the movie, as if they were thinking lets put in as many comical moments as possible and some of them are just bound to hit. I must admit, some jokes do hit and is the reason why I regard this movie as the best one from Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer but unfortunately it's only about 5% of the jokes and comical moments that do hit and made me laugh. 95% of the rest of the movie is just an utter waste of time and insulting to anyone's intelligence. No, there is nothing wrong with some silly comedy from time to time but not when it is as embarrassingly bad as is the case with "Meet The Spartans" and every other Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer movie for that matter. But I always have to give this movie credit for one thing; it's always good and professionally looking. There is still obviously some money and effort put into this movie and it has a good visual look over it. What it also does well is re-playing some of the well known sequences from "300". I'll guess you'll probably hate this movie less if you've seen "300" and most of the other movies that are being spoofed within this movie. Also most of the actors do a decent job impersonating the actors from "300". Of course most characters are just totally bad and lame though but I don't think you can blame the actors for this. I think it was also a good choice to give Carmen Electra a much bigger role this time because lets face it, her appearances basically always had been part of the highlights of any other Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer movie. Also quite fun that Kevin Sorbo has a big part in the movie. He is of course best known for playing Hercules in the hit-series and TV movies. So he's perfectly in place in this movie, despite the fact that he already was 50 at the time of this movie. For what it's worth; it's better than any other Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer movie I've seen before in my life. It doesn't mean this movie is watchable or recommendable though. Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer made lame and bad comedy spoofs in the past and they will also just never become good at it. Please simply boycott their next movies when it will hit the cinema and you'll help to prevent these types of movies from being made and you'll stop unfunny and untalented people such as Friedberg and Seltzer from ever making a movie again. Thank you very much! 3/10 Watch trailer
OK I admit, this movie was bad. I'm not the kind of person who easily jumps on the wagon when basically everybody says a particular movie is beyond bad. I mean, I actually liked "Soul Plane" for what it was and I think its OK to laugh at a silly Leslie Nielsen every now or then. But "Epic Movie" is just plain and simple a bad movie, with no redeeming qualities.
So, what is the problem with "Epic Movie"? Well, what isn't? First of all it just seemed to me that the writers at advance made a list of all 2006 movies they wanted to spoof. Then they thought to themselves how to connect all those different spoof sequences and make one whole move out of it. The end result is unfortunately what the poor viewers got presented. There is not obvious connection between everything which makes this a terrible disjointed spoof to watch, with something that is supposedly supposed to be a story but feels more like a labyrinth, that goes from left to right and flips over, with behind each corner a total different movie it spoofs, as you go through this mess they call a movie.
On top of that, this movie just really isn't funny. Seriously this is the best they could come up with? I mean, it's not like 2006 didn't had any good spoof-able movies. There were so many opportunities for them but instead they came up with incredible lame and unfunny sequences, characters and dialog. It makes you wonder, didn't the actors realized that what they did just wasn't funny? Why didn't they just quite and walked off the set, that would had saved them a lot of embarrassment.
The movie still has some good production values and is good and professional looking, which is basically the only reason why I just can't rate it any lower.
