By JOE LEYDON

A 20th Century Fox release of a Regency Enterprises presentation of a New Regency/3 in the Box production. Produced by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer. Executive producer, Arnon Milchan. Co-producers, Mark McNair, Hal Olofsson. Directed, written by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer.
 
Leonidas - Sean Maguire
Queen Margo - Carmen Electra
Xerxes - Ken Davitian
Captain - Kevin Sorbo
Traitoro - Diedrich Bader
Persian Emissary - Method Man
Dilio - Jareb Dauplaise
Sonio - Travis Van Winkle
Messenger - Phil Morris
 

Lazy, lame and painfully unfunny, “Meet the Spartans” is yet another scrambled-genre parody from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the same writer-director team that previously unleashed “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie.” Latest effort basically is an extended spoof of “300,” Zack Snyder’s celebration of testosterone-fueled, blue-screen-enhanced excess, interspersed with jokey references to reality TV shows, overexposed celebrities, popular vidgames and, apparently, anything else the filmmakers noted while channel-surfing between camera set-ups. Unfortunately, even the easiest targets emerge unscathed, because few of the jokes are at all amusing. After a middling opening, expect a quick drop into the box office pit of death.

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Tags: Movie Reviews-USA

Distributor: LIONSGATE Running Time: 93 mins. Color: Color Production: A Nu Image production for Equity Pictures Medienfonds GMBH & Co., presented in association with Millennium Films Genre: Action Film Width: 2.35 Sound: Dolby Digital (AC-3), DTS, SDDS Language: English

Cast: Sylvester Stallone | Julie Benz | Paul Schulze | Matthew Marsden | Graham McTavish | Tim Kang | Rey Gallegos | Jake La BotzCredits: Director(s) Sylvester Stallone Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone | Art Monterastelli Based on characters created by David Morrell Producer(s) Avi Lerner | Kevin King Templeton | John Thompson Executive producer(s) John Feltheimer | Peter Block | Harvey Weinstein | Bob Weinstein | Danny Dimbort | Boaz Davidson | Trevor Short | Andreas Thiesmeyer | Florian Lechner | Randall Emmett | George Furla Director(s) of photography Glen Macpherson Production designer(s) Franco-Giacomo Carbone Edited by Sean Albertson Music by Brian Tyler Costume designer(s) Lizz Wolf Visual effects supervisor(s) Wes Caefer

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Cast:
Diane Lane | Colin Hanks | Billy Burke | Joseph Cross | Mary Beth Hurt | Peter LewisCredits:
Director(s) Gregory Hoblit
Screenplay by Mark R. Brinker | Allison Burnett
Story by Robert Fyvolent | Mark R. Brinker
Producer(s) Andy Cohen | Hawk Koch | Gary Lucchesi | Steven Pearl | Tom Rosenberg
Executive producer(s) Richard S. Wright | Eric Reid | James McQuaide | Harley Tannebaum
Director(s) of photography Anastas Michos
Production designer(s) Paul Eads
Edited by David Rosenbloom | Gregory Plotkin
Music by Christopher Young

Gregory Hoblit’s cyber-thriller Untraceable is a cynically contrived concept offering a clever package of torture, sadism and venality for the digital age—not surprisingly, the screenplay handiwork of a seasoned entertainment lawyer (Robert Fyvolent) and a prominent surgeon (Mark R. Brinker).

Hoblit, of course, is no wimp when it comes to murder most ugly and psychopathic; his debut feature was the neat, nasty but seriously twisted Primal Fear and his TV cop show creds are no less dark. His latest, well-crafted effort tells the story of an FBI cyber-crime unit on the hunt for a tech-savvy killer who posts his murders on the Internet, and it’s loaded, especially in early frames, with Web jargon. But audiences need not be fluent in such cyberspeak, nor does Untraceable waste much time with the technical intricacies and ornate trickery the villain embraces. Rather, the film delivers a tight cat-and-mouse thriller sullied by or seasoned with (depending on one’s taste for such things) elaborate acts of torture.

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Cast:
Anamaria Marinca | Laura Vasiliu | Vlad Ivanov | Alexandru Potocean | Luminita Gheorghiu | Adi Carauleanu | Liliana Mocanu | Tania PopaCredits:
Director(s) Cristian Mungiu
Screenplay by Cristian Mungiu
Producer(s) Oleg Mutu | Cristian Mungiu
Executive producer(s) Florentina Onea
Director(s) of photography Oleg Mutu
Production designer(s) Mihaela Poenaru
Edited by Dana Bunescu
Costume designer(s) Dana Istrate
Sound Titi Fleancu | Dana Bunescu | Cristian Tarnovetchi

Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) has agreed to help Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) have an abortion, an illegal operation in Romania in the late 1980s. The two students, roommates in a dog-eared dormitory in Bucharest, have scraped together money for a cheap hotel room and fee for the abortionist, a man named Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) with unclear credentials and dubious motives. Gabita, self-centered and distracted, fails to confirm the room reservation and sends Otilia to meet the abortionist in her place, raising his suspicions…and his price. By the time Gabita arrives at the more expensive hotel, barely prepared for the coming ordeal, both young women realize their lives are about to change.

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By Keith Uhlich

Credits:
Director(s) Jieho Lee
Screenplay by Jieho Lee | Bob DeRosa
Producer(s) Darlene Caamano | Emilio Diez Barroso | Paul Schiff
Executive producer(s) Tai Duncan | Bill Johnson | Christopher S. Pratt | Jim Seibel
Director(s) of photography Walt Lloyd
Production designer(s) Bernardo Trujillo
Edited by Robert Hoffman
Music by Marcelo Zarvos
Costume designer(s) Michele Michel

The Air I Breathe is a slick little shit-slinger, one of those “we’re all connected” mélos that seem to be the rage these days (check my colleague, Steven Boone’s, encounter with a Euro cousin of the genre — same bat-festival). Not that there’s anything wrong with this particular cinema subgroup, which various and sundry have traced back to Paul Haggis’ Crash, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts; it’s just a particular kind of narrative storytelling (typically in service of, or enslaved to, a massive ensemble cast) where the pretentious reach more often than not exceeds the philosophical grasp.So it is with the frenetically photographed (by Short Cuts cinematographer Walt Lloyd) yet always watchable The Air I Breathe, which co-writer/director Jieho Lee reports was inspired by a Chinese proverb that pronounces the four basic building blocks of life to be Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love. In lieu of character names, Lee’s primary cast inhabits each of these singular emotional bases. Forest Whitaker is Happiness, a disgruntled bean counter who impulsively gambles away his savings; Brendan Fraser is Pleasure, a stoic mob thug who can see psychic glimpses of the immediate future; Sarah Michelle Gellar is Sorrow, an up-and-coming pop singer with a checkered past and a decidedly unhappy future; and Kevin Bacon is Love, a doctor forced through unfortunate circumstances to save the unrequited love of his life (Julie Delpy).

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