|
FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY * out of *****
 Genres
2003
Directed by Robert Iscove Written by Kim Fuller Cast Kelly Clarkson .... Kelly Taylor Justin Guarini .... Justin Bell Katherine Bailess .... Alexa Anika Noni Rose .... Kaya Greg Siff .... Brandon Brian Dietzen .... Eddie Jason Yribar .... Carlos Theresa San-Nicholas .... Officer Cutler
How’s this for an inauspicious logline:
From Justin to Kelly is a spring break musical comedy starring the winner and runner up from the first American Idol as star-crossed lovers.
 | | You all look foolish. | No surprise that this movie is ass. So is the Idol franchise, but it’s nice to know that this cash-in attempt didn’t pay off. According to IMDb the budget was $12 million, and in the US it bought in only around $5 million. Considering that it hasn’t even been released on DVD here in New Zealand yet (as of August 2005), the international earnings can’t be high.
It’s the sort of film where it’s clear that no one involved in it is cool in any way. You’re watching the wannabes and also-rans of the world. The bottom dwellers. The fourth-stringers. The bottom stream of geometry classes. This isn’t the case of people having a bad day, this is just them doing their thing. And they stink.
The story is your basic mismatched lovers claptrap. Kelly is the uptight one, Justin the freewheeling playboy. At a party they spot each other and have a connection. Then they desperately try to find each other while many a madcap contrivance keeps them apart. But they have zero chemistry, Kelly just looks kind of weird, while Justin seems like a dick. The audience has no desire to see these two get together.
 | Take away Justin, put it in another
movie, and this would be cool. | They each come on spring break with two friends. Justin’s posse consists of the arrogant skirt chaser Brandon, and the comedy geek Eddie. Kelly’s consists of the slut Alexa, and the romantic Kaya. Brandon runs a whipped cream bikini contest (a lot less fun than it sounds), Eddie tries to hook up with his internet girlfriend, Alexa tries to steal Justin, Kaya goes out with a waiter. This means, thankfully, that we have a ton of subplots that eat up screen time and wisely keep Justin and Kelly off screen. I’m not that thankful, but this is a pick your poison situation, and I’ll go with the sidekicks.
What’s so bad about From Justin to Kelly? Well, this is a musical. The music is terrible. The range between original songs that forgettable or aurally offensive, and covers that are destroyed. Alexa has by far the worst song of the film, "Wish Upon a Star". This isn’t one of the treacly ballads, but an aggressive, pounding, off-key dance number. The song teaches us that Alexa is a slut (though she of course has a sudden reversal at the end of the film). Justin and Kelly both sing ballads in the trademark "Idol" contestant over-singing style. And the big finale is a fucked version of "That’s the Way I Like It".
 | This picture should teach us all to
carefully read everything we sign. | The dance routines may be worse than the music. They’re basically a series of low-rent music videos; big groups of choreographed dancers heavily edited to hide how lame the moves are. The technique looks crappy on a music video, and it’s even worse in a movie. The most imaginative dance scene involves the use of beach towels. The camera slows down for the slow numbers, but they’re deathly dull scenes of Justin or Kelly walking slowly while singing a ballad.
So the romance and music doesn’t work, what about the comedy? The writer, Kim Fuller, is the brother of American Idol producer Simon Fuller. And he wrote SpiceWorld and several S Club 7 adventures. So don’t even ask.
From Justin to Kelly is a pitiful production, like the awful albums that Idol winners have to record within a week of winning the show. It failed as a light-hearted musical (it made me depressed). It failed as a party movie (it made me want to take up Warhammer). It just failed. That it failed to make any money is its sweetest failure of all.
Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) |
