Meet the Spartans is rated PG-13: for crude and sexual content throughout, language and some comic violence

Celebrity status often comes with a cost and for those who've been overexposed in the media. One reward (or punishment) is being spoofed in a Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer teen flick. Chuck full of star parodies, the tag team who brought viewers films like Date Movie, Scary Movie and Epic Movie has a new offering lampooning the bloody battle blockbuster 300 and scores of other pop culture fads.

Leonidas (Sean Maguire) is the king of the Spartans who greets his male guests with passionate, full-mouthed kisses and readies his son for manhood by violently beating him. Under threat from the encroaching Persians, the monarch's sexually provocative and unfaithful Queen (Carmen Electra) spurs him into taking the offensive. So despite the grim warnings of the Spartan oracle (Crista Flanagan), he and the Captain (Kevin Sorbo) lead a dozen or so skipping, handholding troops into a tedious and sometimes bloody battle against Xerxes (Ken Davitian) and his soldiers. Slashing their way through their foes, they also employ a drug-filled syringe, step dancing and shock talk as weapons on the confined battlefield.

However, the story is a mere sidebar in a script that is constantly interrupted with famous look-alikes, television parodies and commercial breaks. Beer brands, sandwich shops, and web sites are among the products plugged in random fashion throughout this film that, like its predecessors, drags snippets of recent theatrical releases on to the screen.

Along with violence, the movie is swamped with crude sexual humor, buttock nudity, anatomically altered males and frequent, offensive homosexual jokes. Banal bathroom comedy and derogatory remarks are packed in alongside profanities and an obviously bleeped sexual expletive.

With little plot to tie this hodgepodge of clips and cameos together, the steady barrage of coarse content often feels more like a torture treatment than entertainment. After sitting through more than an hour of this raw humor, I can think of at least 300 reasons not to Meet the Spartans.

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox.

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Scenes of characters discarding unwanted babies on a pile of skulls and pushing unwelcome guests into a well introduce this film’s type of crude humor. Children are also severely beaten, shot at, chased with a chainsaw and exposed to other forms of abuse all in a comedic vein. In war, soldiers are run through with weapons, shot, beheaded, kicked in the groin and repeatedly beaten with a crowbar. Blatant sexual content includes bare buttocks, computer distorted nudity, skimpy clothing, animal copulation and passionate exchanges along with scarcely concealed genitals. Explicit sensual comments, profanities, derogatory statements and sexual-orientation jokes are also frequently used in the script.

Being the target of the paparazzi and media harassment is one of the drawbacks of fame. Do you think celebrities should be exposed to this kind of treatment? Is it part of the package of being famous? How do fans play into this frenzy?

Video alternatives…

After being pushed down a well similar to the one in this film, Princes Giselle finds herself in a manhole in New York City in Enchanted. Intricate dance steps and high-energy moves are all part of the routine in the dance film Stomp the Yard.

If you like spoofs, but are looking for something a little less rude and demeaning, try Galaxy Quest (which pokes fun at the popularity of the Star Trek franchise) and Shrek (which plays with fairytale characters).

DVD Release Date: 3 June 2008

Meet The Spartans releases to DVD in both a rated and unrated version. The rated theatrical cut is presented in wide and full screen on a flipper disc with no additional bonus materials. The unrated Pit of Death edition is available only in widescreen, with the following extras: an audio commentary by the cast and crew, Know Your Spartans Pop Culture trivia game, a gag reel, theatrical trailers, and three featurettes (The Spartans: The Music, Prepare For Thrusting and Tour The Set With Ike Barinholtz). Both provide audio tacks in 5.1 Dolby Surround (English) and Dolby Surround (Spanish and French), with subtitles in English and Spanish.

Only the unrated Pit of Death version of Meet The Spartans is releasing to Blu-ray Disc. Presented in widescreen, it offers all the bonus extras of the unrated DVD, plus an on-screen trivia track and two interactive games (Celebrity Kickoff and Super Pit of Death Ultimate Tactical Battle Challenge).The disc is presented on a 25GB single-layer disc authored in BD-J with AVC (MPEG 4) compression with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio and Spanish / French Dolby Surround.