Movies: Meet the Spartans and Re-Animator
Sep. 1st, 2008 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amediaMeet the Spartans was a really, really dumb parody of The 300, but every now and then it was genuinely funny. A lot of the topical humor is already dated; on the other hand, some of the gags were still laugh-out-loud hilarious. One of my favorite sight gags:
I will also admit that I snickered at their marching formation: holding hands, skipping, and singing, "I Will Survive."
The guy who played Leonidas looked and sounded a lot like Gerald Butler; I thought he provided a much stronger center to the movie than the star of Balls of Fury. On the other hand, the supporting cast wasn't nearly as strong. Diedrich Bader was great. Kevin Sorbo didn't get nearly enough to do. Carmen Electra seemed to be having fun.
Re-Animator I didn't watch, but TODS did. He's been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately and he really liked the movie, although he said I wouldn't've (I'm pretty squeamish). He said it was similar to the story it was based on in that it didn't take itself too seriously. He showed me the theatrical trailers that came on the DVD, and there was a moment that I just loved. Jeffrey Combs - you know, Weyoun from DS9 and the Andorian guy from Enterprise - plays Herbert West (the re-animator of the title), and there's a scene in the movie where he dispatches a rival scientist with a shovel, only to experiment on the body later. So in the trailer, Dr. West says to a friend, "Dr. So-and-so won't be bothering us any more." His friend says, shocked, "You mean he's dead?" Combs gives just the faintest pause and a hint of a wince and says, "Well... not any more." It's beautifully played!
I will also admit that I snickered at their marching formation: holding hands, skipping, and singing, "I Will Survive."
The guy who played Leonidas looked and sounded a lot like Gerald Butler; I thought he provided a much stronger center to the movie than the star of Balls of Fury. On the other hand, the supporting cast wasn't nearly as strong. Diedrich Bader was great. Kevin Sorbo didn't get nearly enough to do. Carmen Electra seemed to be having fun.
Re-Animator I didn't watch, but TODS did. He's been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately and he really liked the movie, although he said I wouldn't've (I'm pretty squeamish). He said it was similar to the story it was based on in that it didn't take itself too seriously. He showed me the theatrical trailers that came on the DVD, and there was a moment that I just loved. Jeffrey Combs - you know, Weyoun from DS9 and the Andorian guy from Enterprise - plays Herbert West (the re-animator of the title), and there's a scene in the movie where he dispatches a rival scientist with a shovel, only to experiment on the body later. So in the trailer, Dr. West says to a friend, "Dr. So-and-so won't be bothering us any more." His friend says, shocked, "You mean he's dead?" Combs gives just the faintest pause and a hint of a wince and says, "Well... not any more." It's beautifully played!
