My brother-in-law works in a rental shop, so when a rental copy they're not yet supposed to put on the shelves shows up, there's a chance I'll be around when they all sit and watch it.

Meet The Spartans was the newest addition to their collection and it is one of the weakest comedies I'd ever seen.

The pacing of the film was horrible; so many of the jokes were dragged out for far too long, particularly the death pit scene and the dance-off, then the much more entertaining gags just happened in the background (I actually found it hilarious when the camera quickly panned past a Spartan ironing his cloak). Some of the production-related jokes were fairly amusing; the bad guys bringing in a blue screen genuinely made me chuckle, but that was about it. Sections parodying the movie itself were also not that bad (but again, totally dragged out; how many people do we need to throw into the death pit?).

When it first came out, I remembered someone saying that the funniest part is where all the Spartans sing and dance to "I Will Survive", and when I read that remark I knew the movie was gonna be bloody disastrous.

The most pathetic thing is that the movie didn't even pass the ninety minute mark... all these opportunities for pop-culture references, parodying 300 itself and product placement and you can't even make your movie longer than what was it, 82 minutes?

What a terrible movie. I can't believe it got past the original pitch, I can't believe it wasn't pulled during production, and I can't believe they didn't start firing people when it entered post production... or did they?