Oh dear lord...

Rating: 1/10 (25 September 2004)

Let's just be brutally honest here; this is a Spice Girls vehicle. No doubt about it. From the biggest hater of the film to the biggest fan of the girls, everyone might as well admit from the very beginning: this film was primarily (and, in the opinion of many, purely) made to promote the Spice Girls as well as their then-new album. The moment you realize/accept that fact is the moment that this film gets easier to sit through. However, it still is very, very hard to sit through, and the majority of the people I know wouldn't be able to sit through the entirety of this mess of a film, not even to satisfy the most basic human instincts of curiosity by finding out what happens in the end. The film pretty much plays like a 90-minute promotional video, or a compilation of music videos with pointless plot in-between each performance to keep the music from getting to be too much. Newsflash: the people who would willingly watch this would most likely be just as happy with a 90-minute compilation of music videos or live performances; they don't care about the film itself. I'm not saying that every single Spice Girls fan hated, or even disliked the film itself(I'm not even claiming that one single fan didn't enjoy seeing the girls being "themselves"); what I am saying is that they wouldn't have cared if this feature was a 90-minute long music video, instead of the barely coherent mess that the movie is. But, back to the point I was trying to make; the film is a Spice Girls movie. Not a comedy, or a music movie, but a Spice Girls movie. Made entirely for the fans. This, of course, means that the movie is exclusively enjoyable for the fans... and now that the girl-band is no longer a hot subject, and it's no longer "in" to like them, their fan-base has been reduced to a minimum. Therefore, now, only seven years after the film was made(or a few years ago, for that matter; ever since they stopped being popular) the film will only appeal to those who are still fans. As you have probably figured out by everything I've written up to this point, I am not, nor have I ever been a fan of the girls. They are charming, sure, their songs are catchy(admit it, even you've hummed along one or two of their singles when it came on the radio), and they are, undeniably, quite attractive, but that's all there is to it... and that's certainly not enough to carry a feature film, once they're no longer famous. Of course, the director probably didn't think about that, and merely made the film to capitalize on their popularity. Oh well. The film now belongs in the same category as one of those films made about some famous guy/girl/group of people that people no longer care about... probably all inspired by The Beatles(unless someone came before them... I'm not sure if they were the first bands to do feature films). The thing is, The Beatles not only were popular back when they made their films, some 30-40 years ago; they still are popular. The Spice Girls aren't. They were merely the newest of the popular teen-bands... and they didn't last much longer than most others. Now, that's enough for the analyzing, on to the review. The plot is barely coherent and poorly paced, constantly throwing new characters into the story, that appear for a few minutes only to disappear again, as well as introducing subplots that are never used to full advantage. The acting is atrocious. The characters are tired stereotypes. The cinematography is forgettable and unimaginative. The humor is British humor at its worst(I think, at least; I haven't seen enough British comedies to determine if there is a lower level than this). All in all, the film have little to offer(apart from one or two clever references and some good self-parodying in one or two places) to anyone but Spice Girls fans. I recommend this exclusively to Spice Girls fans. It's to painful to sit through for virtually anyone else, even if it's just to laugh at the pure stupidity of it. Everyone but Spice Girls fans: Avoid at all costs. 1/10