Review of Spice World: The Movie

Introduction

OK, I’ll admit it... We saw this flick at the cinema, I own the two albums and Posh’s parents live down the road from me. Yes, it’s SPICEWORLD The Movie!

The fun mickey-taking film of the Spice Girls’ daily lives when Ginger Spice Geri was with them, or as Steven Fry wonderfully pronounces it – Gerree (as in ‘grape’) is basically a remake of Abba The Movie in many ways, updated for the late 90s and less Australian (unless you count the appearance of Barry Humphries as media mogul Kevin McMaxford, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Sir Les Patterson).

The cast list is as glittering as some of the costumes, and features Elton John (on screen for two minutes and he gets to feature in the Cast Biographies section!), Roger Moore (doing an uncanny 007 Blofelt impression complete with stroking Piglet), Richard E Grant (playing, well, Richard E Grant), Meatloaf (who drives the bus so WELL) and Alan (‘She changed the access codes’) Cummings.

The film is a glorious spoof on the defined characters of each of the five band members, and they seem to love playing up to each of their stereotypes: Emma ‘Baby’ Bunton and her cute smile, Victoria ‘Posh’ Adams and her clothes fixation, and Mel ‘Scary’ B and her mouth.

Also special effects are plentiful – there is an amazing scene where their Spice bus jumps over the opening Tower Bridge. How they did it is beyond me. I’m sure it must have something to do with lots of very expensive CGI and accurately detailed models combined (!)

Video

An anamorphic transfer is presented on this DVD, but to my mind the picture seems a little overly soft throughout the film. A low budget British movie this is, and plenty of London locations are used that will be familiar.

Of course the major thing to mention in the visuals section is the sheer enormity of their shoes.

Audio

The audio is Dolby Digital 5.1, but as this is primarily a film of lots of their tunettes, the 5.1 is rarely used! The front left and right channels are definitely the most active of all the channels, with very little rear and sub information. I did think in parts the tracks came across as a little distorted on the audio, also some hissing on the sharp notes too.

Not to worry though. The tracks come across well, even if the rest of the film’s sound isn’t much to write home about.

Features

Ooh ooh – there actually are some extras, but they not exactly advertised on the box cover!

The menus are static and feature a nasty little selection indicator in that it simply erases a chunk of the menu option that it is highlighting! Quite difficult to follow it, but thankfully this is not evident when played on a DVD ROM where the mouse is used to select.

You get a ‘Select Your Favourite Spice’ bit which is basically just pages of text about each of the girls, and cast and film makers bios. Finally a little boring page of future DVD releases.

Oh and it comes in those horrible super jewel cases – love em or loath em.

Conclusion

The film is nowhere near as cheesy as you might think. It is a fun movie and one the kids will enjoy, and I defy the parents not to enjoy it as much as them!

The story is a parody on the whole Spice image and the girls are laughing at themselves (or so they said on an interview when the film was doing the rounds at the cinema a couple of years ago!). The best thing about the movie is the very impressive supporting cast. So many famous faces pop up left right and centre.

The DVD quality is not stunning, the extras are not much either.

All in all, it’s worth a view if you’re in the mood, but it probably wont be a DVD that you will be regularly pressing your Eject button for.