Thoughts on Spice World

 

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"I mean, I know you said it was going to be tacky, but this is tacky."

Picture it: Michigan, circa 1998-99. Me and my younger brother are arguing. I'm 10 years old and picking on low-hanging fruit. I reference Spice World, namely the bit where their Union Jack double-decker bus passes Buckingham Palace and Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell (now Horner) suggestively calls out to Prince Charles. This was just too much for me. I thought Geri was certainly not fit to someday be Princess of Wales and my brother had no taste for still listening to the Girls. The point to this story, besides that I was clutching pearls at an early age, is that I was among the people who piled on the Girls for failing to be serious enough.

*Clifford the manager (Richard E. Grant) berates the Girls for an impromptu speedboat excursion that ended with two young fans, Victoria "Posh Spice" Adams (now Beckham), Melanie "Sporty Spice" Chisholm and documentary filmmaker Piers Cuthbertson-Smyth (Alan Cumming, who got billed after the Girls and Grant) in the Thames.*

"What do you think you were doing, going off like that?"

"We were just having fun."

"What?"

"You know, fun, like ha-ha-ha-ha?"

"Look, Clifford, we're old enough to take responsibility for our own lives*, do you know what I mean?"

"You don't have a life, you have a schedule. You are part of a well-oiled global machine. There are people everywhere working their butts off for you! People like Deborah here."

"Um, can you leave my butt out of this, please?"

*Never mind the kids, I guess.

I'll try not to be too revisionist with my feelings on Spice World. The movie has some good moments, like most of the full musical numbers. I especially like the performance of "Say You'll Be There," which comes after the surprisingly endearing bit where the Girls are having fun together before singing. Okay, sure it was in the script, but I want to believe moments like that happened in real life. Somewhere in the middle are the performances of Grant and Claire Rushbrook as Deborah. He certainly committed to being the Girls' straight man, but a little bit went a long way. And Deborah just seems to be there because I guess the Girls and writer Kim Fuller thought audiences wouldn't like an unchecked older man being so domineering over young women. Clifford, of course, is an analogue for Simon Fuller, Kim's brother and the Girls' manager during filming. In a less than seven-month span in 1997-98, both Simon and Geri were out of the picture.

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I also have mixed feelings about the dual subplots about movie making. Cumming had the funnier character, but I still laugh at the absurd movies Barnfield (George Wendt) and Graydon (Mark McKinney) pitched. The first one is apparently close enough to what Disney wanted to do as an origin story:

"The girls play five sisters whose parents disappeared during the Harrod's sale and were never seen again. ... Now they live at home, struggling to support an elderly grandmother who suffers from some mysterious wasting disease. ... Their only hope at breaking the cycle of poverty lies with the middle sister, Melanie C, who's convinced she could be an Olympic ski-jump champion if only she could overcome her fear of heights, and snow, and if she could just get her hands on a pair of skis."

My biggest problem with Spice World is that there's too much going on. I counted six full (or close enough) musical numbers, including the performance of "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)," which wasn't even on the Spiceworld album. I'd rather there have been more singing and a tighter focus overall. Having expectant mother and pre-fame friend Nicola (Naoko Mori) isn't a completely pointless idea. Ditto Clifford answering to an eccentric Chief (Roger Moore), or tabloid publisher McMaxford (Barry Humphries) and Damien the photographer (Richard O'Brien) orchestrating the inevitable backlash against the Girls. But when you add in the movie stuff, that's five subplots. If that's not enough, we've got dream sequences, some okay comedy (the bit with Michael Barrymore's military-style choreographer Mr. Step is a favorite) and so many cameos.

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"The question of whether the Spices can act -- they can't, but neither could the Beatles -- is largely irrelevant: The movie essentially mirrors the non-diva, down-to-earth personalities on which their act is based, and which include a sizable amount of self-parody."

-- Derek Elley, Variety

Spice World, filmed in the summer of 1997, was theatrically released in December 1997 in the United Kingdom and January 1998 in the United States. The movie came just after the Spiceworld album, which came not that long after the Spice album ran its course. Evidently the gap was just too wide. Or maybe not wide enough. Even before Geri left the group, the Girls never seemed to have a second wave in America**. David Kronke, Los Angeles Times, felt the movie "missed the chance to cash in while Spice Worship was at full throttle" and was "about four months too late to endure in the pop culture annals." By 1997-98, unless you were a fan, the girls were passe, kitsch and overexposed. As Desson Howe, Washington Post, wrote, "They seem to be on the cover of everything that Leonardo DiCaprio isn't." Ubiquity rarely ensures respect. Even now, it's hardly guaranteed. In a 2018 retrospective for Vulture, Ashley Fetters noted that "for all its shrieks of 'girl power!,' (the movie) also drove home that the Spice Girls were, in fact, dumb."

**Geri's departure didn't help. I forgot that the Spiceworld Tour didn't reach America until after she left.

Despite young Franko's passionate defense of the British Royal Family's dignity, I'll admit that Geri is my favorite. Always has been, always will. With that said, I thought each of the Girls had her moments. Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown, Melanie C and Geri all had personas that allowed for opportunities to be charismatic. Victoria, meanwhile, used the narrowness of her persona to her advantage. She had a pretty good deadpan. I actually wouldn't have minded seeing Posh and Clifford interact more. That leaves Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton, who pretty much stayed in her lane but did it as well as she possibly could.

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I can't pretend Spice World is a classic. The movie is too loose to be completely enjoyable and tolerance for the antics will likely depend on how old you were in the Girls' heyday. But nostalgia aside, there is a good amount of ha-ha-ha-ha fun and even some sweetness. I love the fact that making Spice World allowed Grant to be a big shot with his daughter. Stuff like that makes up for the often heavy-handed comedy.

"You see? Doesn't matter how successful you are, sometimes you still have to go pee in the woods."

"(to Clifford the driver (Meat Loaf)) I don't understand how all the toilets can break down at the same time."

"It's not my fault they keep breaking down. Listen, it's hard enough to get a plumber to come to your house and that stays in one place. But you try calling one out to a bus that's moving around the countryside. It's impossible."

"Isn't there something you can do about them?"

"Like what?"

"... Fix them!"

"Listen: I love these girls. And I'll do anything for 'em. ... But I won't do that."

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:
-- "Okay, girls, that was absolutely perfect ... without really being any good at all."

-- Box Office: Grossing $29.3 million domestically (compared to $100 million worldwide) on a $25 million budget, this opened at No. 2 and ranked No. 67 for 1998.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "It's hard to argue there's ever a right moment for a lazily written, thinly veiled cash grab of a movie to arrive in cinemas," Fetters wrote. "Disarmingly, the film thus acknowledges the Spice Girls' flash-in-the-pan status and lets them kid around about their frankly synthetic career," Janet Maslin wrote upon the movie's release. Ruth Kinane, also looking back in 2018, wrote for Entertainment Weekly that "No man in this movie stands a chance against girl power." "It's a feature-length commercial in the form of a revisionist history," Troy Patterson wrote for the magazine in 1998.

-- Critic's Corner, the Girls: Male critics had their knives out! "Let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts," Roger Ebert wrote. "Vanity, thy names be (the girls)," Richard Harrington wrote in the Washington Post. I'm really, really uncomfortable with the "How dare they not be the Beatles!" sentiment of too many reviews from the time of Spice World's release. Kronke: "Geri Halliwell, or Ginger Spice, is posited as the smart one -- let's just say she's no John Lennon." "The bubbly, photogenic stars could easily have been shown off to brighter advantage," Maslin wrote. She thought Emma and Victoria had the best chance at post-group fame. Harrington, who had a tacky line about Geri ("looks like a reformed stripper who's been at the buffet table too long"), agreed about Victoria. "Sleek and slim and clearly destined for the next James Bond film."

-- Critic's Corner, Grant: "Until now a respected character actor," Harrington sniffed. "Grant, in usual manic mode, is much less funny than he should have been," Elley wrote. Ty Burr, Entertainment Weekly: "At the end, he still has to pump his fist and shriek for (the five) with all the 11-year-old girls."

-- Awards Watch: The Girls collectively won the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress and were nominated for Worst Screen Couple (as well as any other members of the ensemble making up a pair at any part in the movie) and Worst New Star. The Razzies also nominated Spice World for Worst Picture, Supporting Actor (Moore), Screenplay and Song ("Too Much"). I can understand the rationale for nominating "Too Much," namely picking on a ballad, but c'mon, Razzie voters. "Viva Forever" was right there. Anyway, favorable nominations for the movie include the Girls being up for the Blockbuster and Kids Choice awards.

-- Hey, It's ...!: Besides the folks I've mentioned, there's ... *takes breath* Elvis Costello, Stephen Fry, Jools Holland, Bob Hoskins, Hugh Laurie, Kevin McNally, Jonathan Ross, Jennifer Saunders, Perdita Weeks, Dominic West and Elton John.

-- *A man chats up Nicola* "Hi, I'm Barnaby. ... So, are you part of the Spice phenomenon?" "No, I'm just nobody." *Barnaby quickly moves on* Eh, he wasn't worth your time, Nicola.

-- Fanservice Junction: For the men and lesbians, we have most of Geri's outfits (I was surprised at how much leg she showed at the "Is the Pope a Catholic?" party), plus Victoria cosplaying at Ursula Andress in Dr. No. For the women and gays, we have the Dreamboys in their white shorts and ass-baring purple suits.

-- Before I forget, lets give a hearty salute to costume designer Kate Carin, whose latest credit is the new Around the World in 80 Days. The choreography is credited to Priscilla Samuels, who went on to work with Simon Fuller's next pond-crossing group, S Club 7.

-- "Emma, Victoria, Melvin C., Melvin B., Geri. You've been charged with releasing a single that is by no means as kicking as your previous records. Nor does it have such a wicked, dirty, fat, bass line. You are sentenced to having your next record enter the charts at number 179, before dropping straight out the following week. Furthermore, you are sentenced to 20 years of appearing on cheesy chat shows in Taiwan, talking about how you used to be famous. And may God have mercy on your lip gloss ... Call Hootie and the Blowfish [or Gary Barlow in the U.K.]."

-- Next: Great Expectations. On deck: The Replacement Killers.