Spice World

Exceedingly silly yet generally entertaining, Spice World follows the Spice Girls (Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, and Victoria Adams) as they travel around London in an oversized double-decker bus and get into a series of misadventures – with the narrative eventually detailing the quintet’s efforts at making their way to a pivotal show at Albert Hall. Filmmaker Bob Spiers has infused Spice World with an energetic and briskly-paced sensibility that does, for the most part, compensate for its rough-around-the-edges atmosphere, with the movie certainly benefiting from the central figures’ relatively strong work and its proliferation of catchy musical numbers (although, in terms of the latter, it’s ultimately clear that the film could’ve used even more of an emphasis on the Girls’ songs). The screenplay, credited to Kim Fuller, doesn’t exactly boast a whole lot of depth or character development, with Fuller instead layering the episodic narrative with a series of thoroughly hit-and-miss comedy sketches (ie for every amusing set-piece or cameo there are about five more bits that simply don’t land). Everything comes together with all the depth of a garden-variety music video and yet it’s ultimately difficult to resist Spice World‘s charms, though, by that same token, there’s little doubt that the movie palpably runs out of steam in the buildup to that aforementioned show (ie was the subplot about the pregnant friend really necessary?) – with the end result a fairly fun little time capsule that fares better than one might’ve anticipated.

**1/2 out of ****