*** Official "CROSSROADS" (2002) Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for Crossroads. Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.
Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!
If you need to discuss those type of issues, please post your discussion comments in the Official Discussion Thread for this film which can be found at this link.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Crawdaddy

 

[JohnS]

Well, I went out and braved
Crossroads
First, strictly on a comparison level. Crossroads is alot better then Glitter. Britney is much better to look at on screen, and can act slightly better then Mariah Carrey.
Now on the review level. Crossroads is highly perdictable. With very little material or substance, Britney Spear's acting debut, feels like "masturbation.
There's nothing real or glamorous about her performance, but just looks nice(jumping up & down on her bed in underwear/walks out in panties & bra), to get you through the movie. But, you keep thinking in the back of your head,
"If she had better material, could she be better?"
Also, through most of it, I felt like I was watching those, "Mom, did you ever have one of those not so fresh feelings?" commercials.
Alot of 'girlie' conversations, which tended to be subtile, due to the fact the movie was rated PG-13.
RATING=**

 

[Troy LaMont]

Well,
I guess being the good daddy that I am (6 year old daughter)...
I braved the teeny bopper crowd last Fri and caughter Crossroads.
Three words - HORR-I-BLE!
I couldn't believe how bad it was. The acting was horrible, the plot was even more so and that's all I have to say about that.
My daughter liked it, but I think it may have been a little beyond her years with the talk of 'virginity', 'touching it', innuendoes and the like (with some cursing as well). :frowning:
Man, I must be showing my age, there was once a time that I would have enjoyed being in a theater made up of 95% females between the ages of 14-20....:rolleyes
Rating 1/2 outta :star::star::star::star::star:!
Troy

 

[Jason Whyte]

Link Removed
Crossroads
Directed by Tamra Davis
Written by Shonda Rimes and Trevor Jones
Length: 95 minutes OTAR: 1.85:1
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rating: ZERO out of :star::star::star::star:
Warning: This review contains spoilers, but since you won't be seeing the film anyway, enjoy.
---
Where does one begin with a film like this?
There are certain bad films that one will simply forget as soon as they get home, perhaps even before they leave the theater doors. Then there are certain bad films that you'll love to hate, that you wish your local university will get midnight shows of, and even purchase the DVD and play drinking games with your friends. In a sense, for all the good movies we all watch, we require bad films in a way. And then there are films like "Crossroads," which is a film I will only watch again if forced by terrorists, required to watch in order to live, or if I took a girlfriend to see this and was immediately guaranteed afterwards I would get laid.
The months of January and February are a dumping ground for studios to release their wasted films, in a vain attempt to make a little money. And yet, the release of "Crossroads" strikes a wee bit of notiriety due to the fact this is the acting debut of Britney Spears. Spears, who is a hot commodity right now because her breasts are still firm, is everywhere. She has a new album that streeted very recently (is that a coincidence or what?), she's appearing on thousands of magazine covers and even a few tabloids, and she's a terrific role model, showing that it's okay for young teenagers to dress like whores to make it somewhere in life.
I don't want to turn this review into a tirade about my distaste of Spears and the effect she has done to the fading music industry, but after she comes into my filmgoing territory with the monstrosity of this movie, can you blame me? There's no reason any other actress could do this role, and certainly would fare better than this material girl wannabe. So, let's talk about the melodramatic disaster.
The film opens on three friends who bury a box in what appears to be a public park, and promise to be friends forever and return to obtain it on graduation day. The box is only buried a few feet and covered up poorly, and I'm sure a dog won't come digging it up or a curious park employee will uncover it. Uh-huh. Cut to graduation day, where the three friends are not talking to one another. There's Lucy (Spears), the high school Valedictorian who spends her free time dancing in her panties to Madonna and dating her chemistery partner (Justin Long from "Jeepers Creepers" fame!). There's Mimi (Taryn Manning from "Crazy/Beautiful"), who, although she doesn't wish to be called trailer park trash, or "Barefoot and pregnant," she is, and is an outcast at school. And there's Kit (Zoe Saldana from "Center Stage"), who appears to be just one of those bitchy, popular girls who used to be fat as a child.
And yet, they all return to the buried box, which to my surprise the dog did not find, and the park employee did not uncover. Suddenly, they're friends again. And, of course, all three girls have major problems to solve east of Georgia. Lucy wants to find her mother in Arizona. Mimi wants to become a country singer in Los Angeles. And Kit wants to find out why her supposed fiancee is not returning her phone calls. So why not just get in a car with a "friend" of Mimi's (Anson Mount) and Go East, Young Women? Oh, and there's no real money involved and the gas tank very rarely goes empty. Did I also mention the male driver is a rumored ex-convicted murderer?
All of these "problems" are solved within the last 15 minutes of the film, which means we are still saddled with the long, unending road trip which gets us to hell just a little too late before I called it that. Director Tamra Davis, like so many "girl pics" before her, seem to have a sudden distaste in men, showing them as clueless and irresponsible. Even Lucy's father (Dan Akyroyd) shows up whenever the script needs him, from browbeating Lucy into attending college to become a doctor, or simply showing up in L.A. at the end and throwing such laughable lines as "Do you have any idea how much the plane fare and cab ride cost?" Although, she does give us a cameo with Kim Cattrall as Lucy's mother in Arizona, but it cuts away just as Lucy has the news broken to her, as if Davis is afraid to actually watch a bad actor perform against a good one.
Would it have been too much to ask Mimi's aspirations as a singer be transferred to Lucy? It's already goofy enough that Mimi has a connection from her child to Kit's lover, that gets revealed in one of the most laughable shots in the film, which gets hit by an even funnier one as she falls down the stairs to have an obligatory miscarriage. It's bad enough she can't sing. At all.
I clocked, on my watch, how long it takes Spears to be revealed in her underwear from the start of the film. Three minutes. Ten minutes later, she takes off her robe to show an even more revealing bra. A few scenes later, she's bending over to pick something up, and the camera lingers on her cleavage. There's scattered bra shots, tight tank tops and even a swimsuit shot that proves once and for all she did not get implants. Yet, does Spears really expect us to take her seriously? I couldn't stop noticing, besides the lingering shots of her cleavage and her sudden ability to warble out ballads, that she was wearing all the makeup of the cast.
At the end of this very long and arduous film, after all the problems have been wrapped up with a neat little bow, Britney sings, and we get a soundtrack promotion. Rather, as lucy, she steps up to the auditioing plate and sings the latest song to Spears' new album, "I'm Not a Girl." All the people in the scene, the judging panel and the onlookers, start clapping their hands and waving their arms around. I was seriously shocked I wasn't handed the soundtrack on my way out the door.
--end
Seen at: Silvercity Tillicum, Victoria BC