# Spice World (1997)

### reviewed by
Ted Prigge

    SPICE WORLD (1998)
    A Film Review by Ted Prigge
    Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: Bob Spiers Writer: Kim Fuller Starring: Melanie Brown, Victoria Addams, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Haliwell, Richard E. Grant, Claire Rushbrook, Naoko Mori, Roger Moore, Alan Cumming, George Wendt, Mark McKinney, Richard O'Brien, Meat Loaf, Barry Humphries, Richard Briers, Elvis Costello, Stephen Fry, Bob Geldof, Hugh Laurie, Bob Hoskins, Elton John, Jennifer Saunders, Kevin Allen

I hate the Spice Girls. I hate how their music is so catchy that it sticks in your head for days after hearing it. I hate how they promote "Girl Power," yet they dress scantily and pose nude for horny pubescent teenage boys. And I hate how they're all over the place, even though they have no real talent. Why I saw this movie is a really, really, really long story, but I did, and one would think I'd despise every minute of it. But...

Okay, I'm really ashamed of it, but I enjoyed it. I mean, I admit it's a really awful movie, a wannabe "Hard Day's Night" (no pun intended), filled with excuses for them to act wacky as hell, and to provide the locale for the ninth floor of hell desginated for every single person willing to do a cheap ass cameo in a cheap ass movie. The plot is such a mess that it's terrible. But I loved it. Why? Well...

For those of you who still don't know, the Spice Girls are a quintet of british bimbos who were recruited to be the next "big thing" in the pop scene world, and therefore sing really iritating songs that are nevertheless catchy (after I first heard "Wannabe," I tried to get a labotomy to remove the section of my brain that remembers every painful note). About a year after conquering America, releasing the number one album of last year, they have a movie in an effort to make them the faux-Beatles.

But their first movie is hardly "A Hard Day's Night," even if it lifts a lot from it and drops it into their movie. Here's a basic sketch of the plot and see if it sounds familiar: the girls o' spice have a big concert at Albert Hall, and the film chronicles a wacky week in their life prior to this gig, including press conferences filled with boring people, boisterous escapes from their schedule, a big cliff-hanger over whether they'll make their concert or not, and bitching from their nervous manager Clifford (Richard E. Grant). Now, the plot of "A Hard Day's Night:" the Beatles have a big concert and the film chronicles a wacky couple days in their life prior to this gig, including press conferences filled with boring people, boisterous escapes from their schedule, a big cliff-hanger over whether they'll make their concert or not, and a lot of bitching from a nervous TV manager, played by Victor Spinetti.

Of course, "Spice World" also lifts a lot from the second, wackier (and funnier) film, "Help!," which was so weirdly comical, and so incoherent that it was almost more enjoyable but hardly artier. "Spice World" lifts a lot from this one, including some wacky sub plots (one includes a sneaky photographer played by Riff Raff himself, Richard O'Brien, trying to dig up anything bad about them for a newspaper who wants to print bad news about them), a surreal living style (how big is the inside of their bus?), and some really weirdly funny sequences that may go way over the head of its target audience (how many Spice Girls fans will understand the dream sequence starring Hugh Laurie as a faux-Poirot?).

But what the film forgets is that "A Hard Day's Night" was deceptively brilliant, and wonderfully organized, while "Help!" found the Beatles after this more artier film and gave them the liscence to just go completely wacky (Paul McCartney confessed that the plot of the film was determined by which foreign places they wanted to visit). "Spice World" tries to combine these two elements, and comes out snake eyes with both of them.

This doesn't mean that this film is a disaster. I, who hate the Spice Girls, do confess that their best quality is their energy, and second is their sense of humor. They may suck musically and all, but at least they don't take themselves seriously, and do what it is they do with a lot of energy placed into it. Songs like "Wannabe" and "Spice Up Your Life" are awful tunes, but when seeing them performed they seem better due to what the girls put into the act. In this film, they do the same thing.

The film is really just a series of comic skits, some which are pretty bad, and a lot which are pretty hilarious and admittingly joyful. I couldn't get into a bit where they escaped on a boat, or another one where they were getting dance lessons from a hard-assed fruity army man (nice idea, though), but bits like a movie idea proposed by the hilarious ex-"Kid in the Hall" man Mark McKinney (currently rotting on "SNL") about a film called "Spice Force Five" left me in stitches. And the finale where they try to make it to their concert is hilarious, only because as they're doing this it is being narrated by McKinney to a suicidial Clifford.

Also, I found myself liking each of the Spice Girls. I might hate their act, but I couldn't help kinda loving all of them. They're very likable people, and each of them is presented with a distinct personality. They command the film nicely, making up for any really big problems with the film itself. And, my god, the cameos in this film! This is fun just to spot all the celebrity turn-ups, including Meat Loaf as a bus driver, Shakespearean actor Richard Briers as a bishop, british comic actor Stephen Fry as a condemning lawyer (getting the film's funniest line), Elvis Costello as a bartender, and Roger Moore as "The Chief," the omniscent man upstairs who strokes a pig, and spouts out numerous aphorisms to comic effect (I think I'm the only critic who liked him). And I can't be the only one who just didn't recognize Bob Geldof at first, can I? Or the one who didn't automatically realize that the fat head of the villainous newspaper (Barry Humphries) is really Dane Edna sans dress?

When I left "Spice World" it was the exact opposite of what happened when I went in - which was "I cannot fucking believe I paid $7.50 to see 'Spice World!'" I came out with a big grin on my face, as I had seen a tacky yet hysterical little flick that had won me over soon into its 93 minute run-time. Though I'm really not sure I'd ever see it again (at least for any amount of cash - I mean, for $7.50 I coulda seen it thrice at a suburbanite theater), it held my attention span for its full lenght, and entertained me. I know I'll be figuritively crucified for giving this film a positive review, but it did manage to entertain me and by the finale, I did like the Spice Girls a lot more than I did when I went in. And that's probably all those girls really really wanted (sorry for the bad joke).

    MY RATING (out of 4): ***

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/

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