#25 From Justin to Kelly (Wes)

From Justin to Kelly

This list has thrown a lot of really crappy movies our way, some of which I may have ended up accidentally watching on my own, some I would have never been aware of if it wasn’t for this list. Our next movie was definitely one of the latter. Like Popstar. the last teen pop drama we had to watch (see here), a spring break love story featuring two former American Idol stars really isn’t the sort of movie that I would ever consider watching under any other circumstance. Unfortunately it was next in our list and I had no other choice, so would From Justin to Kelly defy all my low expectations? Only one way to find out….

Conservative Texan waitress Kelly (Kelly Clarkson) heads to Miami with her BFF’s Kaya (Anika Noni Rose) and Alexa (Katherine Bailess). Here in one of those spontaneous dances where everyone knows all the right moves the spring break is famous for, she meets up with Justin (Justin Guarini), who is there with his best buds Brandon (Greg Siff) and nerdy Eddie (Brian Dietzen). Kelly and Justin quickly fall for each other, but neither of them wants just a fling, so they are both cautious. Can their love survive all the singing and dancing that spring break seems to involve? Will Eddie ever meet the girl he met on the internet in real life? Since when was spring break so PG?

If there’s one piece of cockney rhyming slang that I’ve never really understood, it’s syrup of figs (wig). As often as I’ve that someone had an unconvincing syrup, I’ve never actually known what syrup of figs actually is. Well thanks to this movie and it’s God awful syrupy ballads, I actually decided to Google it. It turns out that a syrup of figs is a type of laxative, which seemed strangely appropriate as a massive, steaming pile of shit was exactly what I thought about the songs in this movie.

The songs are nothing but banal fluff, which is about the level I’d expect from an American Idol spin-off movie. To give the writers some credit, they did at least attempt to try to make some of the songs different from each other, including one where the characters sing their lines in some horrible opera or PG rated version of R Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, but they may as well not have bothered. The songs all blend into one horrible, forgettable mess, seemingly missing the point of a musical, in that there isn’t a single song you’d even remember half an hour after you’d finished watching it, let alone still be humming it weeks after having watched it.

The big problem with this movie isn’t actually the songs though (nor is it the poor choreography that can best be described as “awkward uncle at a wedding dancing”). At least they may appeal to American Idol fans, so that alone would make their target audience happy. The problem is that this film is almost as though Marge Simpson wrote it in the classic Simpsons episode where she attempts to eliminate violence from Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. It so non- offensive that it’s just plain dull.

This is a tale of such wholesome spring break partying, that it would make John Belushi spin so hard in his grave that he could be considered the first perpetual motion machine. Even Andrew WK, Rodney Dangerfield and Caligua hijacking Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest and Rio Carnival and bringing them straight to Florida along with all of the revellers and the contents of Hunter S Thompson’s medicine cabinet, couldn’t save this dismal excuse for a party. This is the only movie that features a margarita party held by the only Americans who aren’t aware that prohibition ended in 1933.

I can only imagine that when writer Kim Fuller was told that having written Spice World, that at least they’d never be able to write a script worse, his response was “hold my beer”. Movie vehicles for pop stars are often badly written, if only for the fact that the makers know the fans will most likely go and watch it regardless, for example Mariah Carey's Glitter (see here), but From Justin to Kelly takes this to a new level.

This is a movie so dull that even a scene with some sort of hovercraft basketball jousting game that could have come straight out of Takeshi’s Castle (or maybe It’s a Knockout), just doesn’t seem fun. Even the predictable hovercraft crash is so safe and PG that it has all the drama of that time that I lost my pen, then remembered pretty much straight that I’d put it behind my ear. The only positive thing I can say about the script, is that it had a Sideshow Bob gag that I quite enjoyed.

For a non-professional actor, Justin Guarini tries his hardest, and isn’t absolutely terrible, but Kelly Clarkson seems to have taken her acting classes straight from the legendary sweeping extra in Quantum of Solace (if you’ve not seen him, check him out here, he’s incredible). I would love to describe her acting as an enthusiastic amateur, but “Only there because it was in a contract that she signed to be on a television talent show” amateur would be way more accurate.

Like Popstar, this movie was never made with someone like myself in mind as the potential audience, but I can only imagine that this movie could only ever be enjoyed by only the most hardcore Justin/Kelly fan or the least unfussy teenage girl. This movie is less Animal House and more Bear in the Big Blue House and the best way I can sum up this movie is with one of the tweets I shared whilst watching this movie with Colin:

This movie is making me wish that Coily the Spring Sprite from A Case of Spring Fever existed “no more spring(break)s!

(for those of you that have never seen A Case of Spring Fever, I recommend you watch the brilliant MST3K riffing of it here)

#25 From Justin to Kelly (2003) (Colin)

Cast: Kelly Clarkson, Justin Guarini, Katherine Bailess, Anika Noni Rose

Director: Robert Iscove

Genre: Comedy, Music, Romance

The next movie in our list is a musical and regular readers of our blog will know that I absolutely hate musicals with a passion!  They are just so creepy!  If you were walking down the street and all of a sudden someone burst out into song, then a group of people joined in with that song and then the whole group performed a perfectly choreographed dance routine, you’d be freaking out.  I know if it happened to me I would need a clean change of underwear and a few sessions with the local shrink, (I actually put my hatred better in my blog about our #34(b) movie; At Long Last Love, (see review here))!

So our next movie, Justin and Kelly (2003), is already off to a bad start in my eyes, but matters were made even worse when I discovered it stars the winner and runner-up of 2002’s American Idol!

I’m going to sound like an old fart, but the music scene for the last 15 years has been bland, turgid and lacking any cutting edge.  It’s been wave after wave of manufactured pop divas, boy bands and auto-pitch.  Shows like American Idol just keep churning out more and more of these acts and with similar shows, like The X Factor, continuing this trend, there seems no end in sight.

It’s fair to say then, that I am not a fan of the 2 stars of this movie, Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, heck I hadn’t even heard of Justin Guarini until I typed his name out a few seconds ago!

But was I being unfair?  Was it right for me to be dreading watching this movie?  Was it a yes from me?

Kelly Taylor (Kelly Clarkson) is a ‘singer’ at a run down Texan bar and normally performs to an audience of 2, (almost as many who bought this movie).  Therefore she doesn’t take much persuading when her friends, Kaya (Anika Noni Rose) and Alexa (Katherine Bailess) suggest going to Spring Break in Florida.

Meanwhile, 3 friends known as the Pennsylvania Pussy Posse are also heading to Spring Break.  They consist of Justin (Justin Guarini), token jock Brandon, (Greg Siff), and generic nerd to make up the clichéd trio, Eddie, (Brian Dietzen).  They are trying to organise a whipped cream bikini contest, (a thought provoking piece of drama, as I’m sure you’ll agree).

Almost immediately Justin bumps into Kelly and they fall in love.  Literally 6 minutes into the movie, (but don’t worry dear reader, they manage to string this out for another 80 minutes!).  This coincides with the first song of the movie, the first dance routine and the first incident of me slipping into a coma.

Soon after their first encounter, they meet again, this time in the ladies bathroom, where Justin has gone to hide after a hoard of girls wanted wrist bands to the bikini contest, (really?).  After helping Justin to escape from the bathroom via the window, Kelly decides to take her chance and writes her number down on some tissue paper and throws it out of the window.  Unfortunately it lands in a puddle and Justin is left with a nasty mess in tissue paper, (not for the first time I believe!).

Desperate to get Kelly’s number, he runs into Alexa and tries to get the number from her.  Unfortunately Alexa also has her sights set on Justin and gives out her number instead of Kelly’s.  It’s not long before Alexa gets to put her plan into operation as Justin texts ‘Kelly’s’ number asking her out only for Alexa to text back ‘Kelly’ is not interested….

Will Alexa’s plan succeed?  Will Kelly get with Justin?  Will Kelly manage a dance routine without being exactly 1 step behind?

Watch From Justin to Kelly to find out!  Actually, don’t bother and here’s why:

If this story seems familiar to you, it’s probably because it has been done a thousand times before.  There is nothing new on offer here and there are many movies which have done this storyline far better.  It’s boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins back girl but without any clever twists and turns along the way which elevates an average film into a good film.

The jokes are as flat as the cast’s pitch and generally centre on Brandon dicking around.  He tries to inject some American Pie type humour into the movie, but without the crudeness or humour.  In fact this has to be the tamest Spring Break I have ever seen and I never realised Spring Break could be PG.

Guarini’s acting is actually OK.  He does walk around with a smug look and as the b@stard son of Yahoo Serious, but generally lines are delivered convincingly and if I had any interest in the movie, I might actually care if he ends up with Kelly or not.

Clarkson on the other hand seems to be trying to win Madonna’s, ‘Singer Who Can Not Act for Toffee’ award.  She is so wooden that a lump of 2 x 4 in a bikini could have put on a better performance.  There is no emotion, lines are rushed and monotone.  Hell, actually you could have replaced her and Guarini for Hacksaw Jim Duggan, (now there’s a movie I would happily pay to watch).

The rest of the cast are just filler and pad out the movie with further will they / won’t they get together.  It’s hard to invest any time in caring about what happens as the characters are just a bunch of tired clichés with about as much depth as a piece of paper.  They are only in the movie to provide backing singing and dancing.

The dances themselves are uninspired and generally involve some poorly worked arm flapping and side steps.  They look more like people trying to cool their mouths down after eating a hot chilli, than dance routines.

The songs are generic and lifeless and not a single tune stands out.  Guarini and Clarkson can sing, (or rather use a lot less auto-pitch than the rest of the cast), but does this movie showcase their ‘talent’?  Definitely not.

So was it right for me to dread watching this movie?  Definitely!  It’s a million percent no from me!

This movie is just a shameless attempt to cash in on the winner and runner-up on American Idol.  When you see that the production company behind the movie, 19 Entertainment, are also the production company behind American Idol, then the pieces begin to fall into place.

Back in my Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever blog, (see review here), I mentioned that movie studios usually ask video games makers to produce a game as a tie-in to their movie.  What the games makers will usually do is take a generic platform game that they have been working on and will shoehorn the characters into the game.  This is why movie tie-in games are usually quite lousy.

Exactly the same has happened in From Justin to Kelly.  Some execs from American Idol have asked their production company to make a movie to cash in on the winner / runner-up.  That company has then just taken a generic boy meets girl story and shoehorned Clarkson and Guarini into it.  This movie was not made for them, it was made to make money from them.  This is why this movie is so lousy.

From Justin to Kelly was never going to be for me, I don’t like musicals, I can’t stand pop music and I’m not a fan of Kelly Clarkson.  This is probably a movie for those, back in 2002, who voted for Clarkson or Guarini and who wanted to see more of the people they had been following and showing an interest in for several weeks.

For the rest of us, From Justin to Kelly is From DVD Player to Bin.