how do you judge a film that is so bad , but intentionally so ?
in spiceworld , the highly popular singing group the spice girls accomplish their major goal : mocking themselves with a purposely cheezy film and having a lot of fun doing it .
if that was their goal , they did a fantastic job .
so is it fair to give it such a low grade when it was n't really meant to be much better than this ?
honestly , i 'd rather see this film before many others i gave higher grades ,
so does that mean i graded it inaccurately ?
truth be known , i do n't really think i can answer this question .
to understand spiceworld , you have to understand the spice girls .
unless you 're very
* very * young , or fairly older , you probably have at least heard of them .
they 're a group of five busty british babes who 've had # 1 hit singles and whose debut album sold millions .
they 're primarily adored by pre - teen girls who hope someday the contents of their training bras might match those of ginger spice 's ( real name : geri haliwell ) wonderbra .
all five of the girls have these " spicy " names for which they are better known than their real names .
there is the aforementioned ginger spice , as well as sporty spice ( melanie chisholm , or mel c . ) , scary spice ( melanie brown , or mel b . ) , baby spice ( emma bunton ) , and posh spice ( victoria addams ) , and
all of them , to some degree or another , resemble their stage names .
the spice girls took the world by storm , and spiceworld is actually a good- humored spoof of all that transpired during their quick rise to fame .
it 's quite nice to see what good sports the girls are ( and not just the one dubbed sporty ) about poking fun at themselves .
they do n't take themselves too seriously , and that 's probably the best thing about them .
it 's also surprising how natural they seem in front of the camera * acting * , and not just singing and dancing .
they 're not flawless by any means , but for the most part , they deliver their lines without feeling staged , and , like them or not , we get the sense the five are very at home within their characters ( which seems reasonable since they portray themselves ) .
what makes the film bad is that extreme fans of the spice girls wo n't get enough of their music , while the rest of us do n't get enough of a movie .
the real point of this is to look at the spice girls for over ninety straight minutes .
most of the film is very blas ? , but several parts are downright boring , and then they have those sporadic moments that actually make us laugh out loud !
if you 're a big fan of the group , you probably wo n't get enough of what you want , and if you 're not a big fan , you get too much time devoted to nothing more than " look at us " moments .
for the right crowd , the " music video " sequences will be the highlights of the film , but for others , they will serve as three - minute lulls in a hectic - but - overall - uneventful storyline .
other key actors include richard e . grant as clifford , the spice girls ' manager , alan cumming as the film - maker piers cutherton - smyth who attempts to make a documentary of the group , george wendt as martin barnfield , a producer who constantly works on pitching a spice girls movie , and roger moore in a small , self - parodizing role .
all provide relatively good performances , keeping in mind once again that this film was n't meant to be acted seriously .
even meat loaf shows up as dennis the bus driver and seems to have fun with it .
while this film is continuously compared to the beatles ' a hard day 's night , i think that is an unjust comparison .
it is supposedly the movie studio that first mad the comparison by way of press kits , but i do n't think drector bob spiers , nor the spice girls , intended it to be so .
i think the studios were just trying to boost hype and interest in the film , and have instead , come off rather pretentious
.
i do n't think this film is trying to be anything more than a fun , satirical look at a group that got so big , a movie seemed the next likely step .
and what could 've been better than a self - indulged yet self- mocking approach ?
probably nothing , and so it is .
spiceworld is a movie i thought would be embarrassing to enjoy , but now instead , i find myself wanting to defend a movie i did n't even give a good review .
it 's bad , but it succeeds in every way it intended .
it gives the spice girls a chance to play while allowing all those obsessive fans out there to indulge in every brainless moment .
perhaps the group is nothing more than a gimmick .
if that 's the case , the movie 's gimmick is that it * is * such a gimmick !
you might be saying , " a spice girls movie ? come on ! "
,
but when it comes down to it , i think that 's the point .
Output: N