tek's rating:

Spice World (PG)
IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; Sony Pictures; TV Tropes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: none that I know of

For awhile in the 1990s, this British band The Spice Girls were pretty popular. So, naturally, they eventually made a movie. But what to say about the movie? It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. A lot of the time I had no idea what anyone was talking about (partly because of their accents and slang or whatever, partly because it just made very little sense). Everything that happened was pretty random, but I'll try to piece it together as best I can.

Um. So, the Spice Girls play themselves. They go around on the Spice Bus and do various stuff for like 5 days, but ultimately they're supposed to get to this major live show at Royal Albert Hall. They have road manager named Clifford, who's usually working with an assistant named Deborah. Also, Clifford sometimes has phone conversations with someone called "the Chief," played by Roger Moore, who was his boss... but he always said totally cryptic stuff that Clifford didn't understand. But the main thing is, Clifford is always totally stressed out about all the random stuff the girls are doing, and how they may not make it to their gig. Or whatever. Also, the girls have a friend named Nicola, who is pregnant, and they want to be with her when she eventually gives birth, which is just one of the many complications in the movie.

Also, there's this newspaper editor, Kevin McMaxford, who wants to break up the Spice Girls, apparently for two reasons: one, he's sick of constantly reading about them (in his own paper), and two, their break-up would be a major headline. So he sends a photographer to follow them around and create headlines that cause controversy, and, I guess, could gradually lead to a break-up. Or whatever. Meanwhile, there's a documentary filmmaker (played by Alan Cumming) and his crew, always following the band around. Also, there are a couple of Hollywood filmwriters (played by George Wendt and Mark McKinney) who are constantly pitching weird ideas for a movie that would star the Spice Girls, and Clifford has to deal with them. But it seems like a lot of the time, the ideas they're pitching are what's actually happening to the girls as the movie progresses. Very sort of meta.

Of course, there are musical performances throughout the movie. And like I said, lots of weird and random stuff happens. And there are a number of celebrity cameos. And none of it made a damn bit of sense, but that's rather what I liked about the movie. Just how utterly absurd and ridiculous and surreal it all was. Still, I don't imagine I need to ever see it again....


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