My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 07 - Spice World (1997)

Spice World (1997; Columbia Pictures)

If Ringmaster was a big screen episode of Jerry Springer, then Spice World is essentially a big screen music video by the Spice Girls.  A stranger display I have rarely seen, and I would like someone to find it (Greetings from 1969).  This is another vanity project, glorifying its stars and presenting them in  the most fan-serving way possible.  And, let’s be honest, if there ever was a pinnacle of the manufactured (and annoying) pop group, the Spice Girls just might be it.

Spice World is a terrible retake on the 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night, one of two movies starring the Beatles.  The film is about how the Spice Girls handle fame in the eve of a big London concert.  This is what I call a Kitchen Sink movie, not in the art film sense but in the sense that they manage to squeeze everything in this movie, INCLUDING the kitchen sink.  There’s a military scene, a haunted house, fans chasing them down the street (just like the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night), multiple fashion montages, a double-decker tour bus, an evil executive, even aliens!

The arrogance of this movie is almost impressive.  The “stars” are constantly comparing themselves to the Beatles though the Spice Girls are not creatively capable of generating a culturally relevant piece of work anywhere near the wonderful songs of the Fab Four.  Spice World depicts these girls as a close-knit team of friends who thrive on GIRL POWER who shout and cheer for no apparent reason and we wouldn’t see another teenybopper movie this hideous until Bratz in 2007.

The musical numbers in Spice World are equally terrible, as the group is attempting to market the soundtrack to this film as a standalone album.  The band would squeeze another year of success before breaking up in 1998 only to get back together about a decade later to wreak havoc on a new unsuspecting generation of little girls.  I haven’t heard any of their new music, and I really don’t care.  Even if their latest album was comparable to Dark Side of the Moon it wouldn’t change the fact that this is one of the worst films ever made with some of the most grating music I’ve ever heard.