If you haven’t been able to guess, I really like the genre of spoof and farce in film and music. when I heard the premise of this film, I absolutely had to give it a watch. However, let this review be a lesson to those who read it, there is a fine line between Austin Powers and Meet the Spartans.
Story/Writing: 1/2
A pretty funny send-up of old “How-To” films from decades past. It’s just too bad that the humor is pretty one-dimensional and often trips over itself.
Acting: 1/2
Similar to the writing, the acting starts out funny, but then becomes completely dependent on the humorous premise for all of the comedic work.
Photography/Set: 1.5/2
Fairly interesting, with some funny jokes resulting from editing tricks. The sets are pretty good, too.
Sound/FX: 2/2
For me it was ones of the major strengths of the film, and contained the best jokes. Similar in its approach to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the animated effects usually echo the dry wit of the narration.
Misc: 1/2
As I mentioned before the initial idea is funny, but it starts to lose some steam as time wears on. Towards the end, it tried too hard to make the audience care about the unlikable “test subjects”, ultimately ruining any further attempts at humor.
VERDICT: 6.5/10
Good, but barely worth the hour and a half needed to watch it. Funny for the college and grad school-age kids who would get the jokes, but probably lost on most others.
