About as classy and dazzling as Skankilera & Lil' Kim in the video

Rating: 1/10 (28 March 2002)

I can't remember the last time I saw a movie this odious. I appreciate musicals; I am not opposed to vulgarity or exaggeration; I like Bowie and Madonna as much as the next guy. But after being barraged with this film's raunchy idiocy for about two hours, I was entirely desensitized to the costumes, the tolerable singing, the heroes' predicament. Not even its mockery quotient made viewing it a worthwhile experience -- I was far too irritated to enjoy a good laugh.
On the bright side, watching this atrocity will likely have the effect of making the other movie we rented last night seem brilliant in comparison. That movie is Legally Blonde. In fact, this movie makes the film I had previously held to be the worst of all time look rather brilliant . . . that would be Urban Menace, in which Snoop Dogg plays "an insane urban preacher bent on revenge." Oddly enough, though, that movie earned 1.8 stars on this website, and is #50 on IMDB's list of the 100 most poorly ranked films. Moulin Rouge, on the other hand, earned a respectable 8.1 at the time of this review. Perhaps some scheming 12-year-old girl with a crush on Ewan McGregor wrote hundreds of reviews under different user names, and stuffed the ballot box? I can only hope so.
In retrospect I see that the horrifying spectacle that so offended me last year -- that is, Christina Skankilera, Lil' Kim, Pink and Mya prancing around in teddies and hotpants and wrecking a reasonably good LaBelle song -- was perfectly appropriate.