Review: SpiceWorld (1998)

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SpiceWorld

Rating

Director

Bob Spiers

Screenplay

Spice Girls, Kim Fuller, Jamie Curtis

Length

1h 33m

Starring

Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, Geraldine Halliwell, Victoria Adams, Kevin Allen, Devon Anderson, Michael Barrymore, Richard Briers, Simon Chandler, Alan Cumming

MPAA Rating

Basic Plot

The British quintet The Spice Girls romp across England preparing for their first live performance. Along the way they face fans, paparazzi, documentary makers, aliens and a giant Union-Jack clad double-decker bus.

Review

Some films make you want to slap their directors and ask why. This film has too many moments that cause just such a reaction. The opening title sequence gives the film hope that it can’t live up to in the end.

The performance featured at the beginning of the film is filled with terrible lip-synching, giving us chance to long for Milli Vanilli’s return. After that, the film gets better, but often times dips worse.

The whole subplot of Richard O’Brien (Rocky Horror Picture Show) stalking the girls trying to find evil headlines for his boss (played by famed Australian drag queen Dame Edna Everage’s alter ego Barry Humphries) is ridiculously annoying and quite boring. Their plans are generally succesfful, but fail in the end.

Another side trip in the adventure is with a set of Documentary film makers led by Alan Cumming who is one of the brighter spots in the film, if only a 40 Watt one. George Wendt (Cheers) and Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall) play real film makers wanting to create a cash cow featuring the Spice Girls. Wendt is the producer and McKinney is the idea-ridden writer.

Roger Moore makes a cameo, along with several other noted celebrities of music and film, as the man behind the Spice Girls.

There are several pun-filled moments and some cheeky comedy throughout, but not enough to save the film from being average.

The girls themselves sometimes have a chemistry, but are normally annoying paper-thin characters, but still quite fun. The use of many of their ballads helps to keep the film from sinking into a mire of dance tunes. Overall Spice Girls will entertain its core audience easily, but will do little else for the legion of citizens in the United States.