The film follows the Spice Girls in what is purported to be their regular lives as a lead up to a concert at Royal Albert Hall that is going to be a live broadcast. They travel in circles around London in a Union Jack bus that's bigger on the inside and designed with five sections to specifically reflect their manufactured personalities. For the reference those are:
- Scary (Mel B): She yells, I guess. She also dresses in a lot of animal print and even if the other four have managed to dress in a way that doesn't specifically reflect the era, she always looks as 90s as possible with the highest of platform shoes. I think her personality is that she's rebellious and takes no crap.
- Baby (Emma): Her part of the bus is like a play room and she always has either a stuffed animal in her hand or a lollipop in her mouth. She wears a lot of baby doll dresses and is possibly the youngest of the four. The weirdest moment is when she names all her stuffed animals for a man in a tiny bathing suit as an explanation for why there'd be no room for him in her bed.
- Ginger (Geri): She has red hair. That's the point of the name. Or maybe it's because she's spicy. Interesting since it's the only spice. She's the one who's always saying, "Girl power" and the movie frames her as the one who knows things, reads a lot, and engages in discussion with random men about feminism.
- Posh (Victoria): She's the fashionista one although she mostly just wears black and heels, which is admirable. If Baby is the immaturely stupid one, Posh is the adult stupid one. She doesn't do much aside from drive the bus in the final act and stand very straight.
- Sporty (Mel C): As her name would indicate, she is the sporty one. She wears athletic wear 95% of the time, spends a lot of time on an exercise bike, and occasionally will be holding a random sport ball. She's snarky and also seems to be the only one who has a range of more than half an octave.
The Girls meet aliens, have a photography montage, go to dance camp, stay at a National Trust property for a night, have two young fans join them on the bus before they go steal a boat and ride (and accidentally swim) the Thames, perform a concert in Milan, take their pregnant friend to a nightclub, help that friend give birth, and finally perform at Royal Albert. In the background their tour manager wears monochrome suits and freaks out a lot while taking orders from his boss, Roger-Moore-always-holding-a-small-animal. There's also a photographer following them who is trying to find dirt on them for some Daily Mail knockoff and Alan Cumming trying to make a documentary or something about the Spice Girls but he can never get very close to them. And some people trying to pitch a Spice Girls movie which somehow turns into narrativing the movie as it's happening and culminates in fourth wall breaking during the credits. Oh, and Meatloaf is their driver.
This movie is fascinating in a way but not fun to watch. Keith said it's like "A Hard Day's Night" and that seems likely that was the vibe they were going for. The only real enjoyment you might get from this is if you are a Spice Girls fan. Otherwise there's a lot of what, but very little of it is funny. There were however, two jokes that land and one that kind of lands. One is a visual joke of all the girls walking by in army fatigues only to have Posh bring up the rear in a camo dress and heels. The other is when Ginger tells the pregnant friend to keep her legs closed and Scary comments, "She should have done that nine months ago." The one that kind of lands is when an effect of the tour bus going over Tower Bridge is cut with an obvious model of the bridge and a Matchbox bus. There. Now you know the best parts. Unless you're a fan or a 90s completionist, you can skip this one.
*In the US they had three platinum and three gold hits; eight platinum, one gold in the UK.
Spoon Rating: 1
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