Crossroads Trailer: Quicktime
In todays
entertainment world, more artists than ever are pre-packaged
over produced and thrust on the public in a wave after wave
of over saturation where style is prominent over substance
and artistic merit. The over profliferation of boy bands and
flavor of the month bands has reached an all time high. The
reason for this is simple, money, if something hits it big,
then it stands to reason that something packaged in the same
vein is likely to tap into the cash flow as well.
Case in point the recent cinematic flop On The Line
starring Lance Bass and Joey Fatone of Nsync. The powers that
be figured if you put two members of one of the hottest boy
bands in a film, then fans are likely to rush to cinemas to
view it. The recent dud that was Glitter was a
further illustration that a top selling singer, is not guaranteed
to draw fans to the box office, and the damage done to Mariah
Carreys career by the film is still occurring. Even
a star such as Madonna has had more than her share of box
office failures ranging from Shanghai Surprise
to Body of evidence illustrating the challenge
of even established stars taking the plunge into acting.
Not one to be left out, MTV and Paramount have decided to
take the queen of bubblegum pop, Britney Spears and place
her in a starring vehicle called:Crossroads. Spears
stars as Lucy, a valedictorian who has started to question
her life free of fun and adventure while studying to impress
her father Joe (Dan Akroyd). Joe works as a mechanic and plans
to send Lucy to medical school as he sees a bright future
for his daughter. Before long, Lucy and her friends Kit (Zoe
Saldana), and Mimi (Taryn Danning), in an effort to get to
a record company audition and a visit to Lucys long
lost mother (Kim Cattrall). If you are having a hard time
seeing the connection, join the club. Lucy just decides to
leave everything behind on a whim to travel with her two friends,
whom have grown apart from her in recent years. The pregnant
Mimi plans to get a record deal and make something of her
life, and Kit wants to visit her fiancé who attends
school in Los Angeles. As if this scenario is not bizarre
enough, the girls are being driven by a loner named Ben (Anson
Mount), who is rumored to be an ex con. If you think this
plot summary is a mess, than congratulations, you have figured
out the movie and saved yourself time and money. The film
plays out as one long music video and is sure to delight all
of Spears fans who are under the age of 16, and do not
know enough to see garbage when they see it. Spears is an
attractive lady and a talented performer, but she is given
little to do than play herself, and her acting ability seems
limited to turn, smile, sing, look wistful, and playful. I
have seen greater range from an air rifle, and to be honest,
her acting in the Pepsi commercials is better than this mess.
One has to wonder just what entices talent like Cattrall and
Akroyd to appear in a piece of fluff like this. They surely
cant need the money this badly to be reduced to charactures
in brief and uninspired supporting roles. The dialogue in
the film is terrible at times, and the audience at the test
screeners laughed at several scenes and lines where no comedy
was intended. Worse yet, several people at the completion
of the film have said that they have not seen a worse movie
in years. Criticism is often easier than construction, so
I will endeavor to explain why the film failed. First, the
story and characters are very bland and uninspired. The story
is a mix of several stock plotlines, and one can see the outcome
of scenes and characters far in advance. The characters are
bland and are not capable of gaining support or sympathy from
the audience. There are gigantic lapse in reasons and logic
such as the girls being able to raise large sums of money
from an impromptu karaoke concert of I love Rock and Roll.
I could go on and on about the lack of chemistry, the bland
characters, and other issues, but suffice it to say, there
is very little to redeem this film. My advice is for Britney
to stick to what she does best, singing and leave the acting
to professionals until she has more time to devote to the
craft and not see filming as something to squeeze in between
touring and commercial shoots as she did for this film.
1
star out of 5
Gareth
Von Kallenbach
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