I really don’t have an opinion of Brittany Spears when it comes to her singing or her clothing because I am not in her target audience. I don’t dislike the girl or her music, but lets face it, an entire movie featuring the Madonna protégé doesn’t sound all that appealing. What this movie should have been called is Brittany finally gets laid and it would have drawn a male audience instead of all pre-teen girls. I am sure the writer, Shonda Rhimes, intended this road trip among friends to be a journey of self- discovery and coming to terms with the past, but it just came across as a vehicle to let Lucy (Spears) lose her virginity before heading off to college. She spent a lot of time prancing around in her underwear and singing, so where the acting came in to play is anyone’s guess.

The plot is simple enough, three childhood best friends, Lucy, Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning of Crazy/Beautiful) bury a box when they were ten and made a pact to dig it up and see their wish on the day of their high school graduation. During those eight years these friends stopped being friends and kinda did their own thing. Kit lost weight and became a mean popular girl, Mimi got knocked up over Christmas break her senior year, but that was to be expected from poor trailer trash and Lucy the valedictorian never did anything but study hard through high school to please her demanding father (Dan Aykroyd of Evolution). We think we are going to see Lucy pop her cherry to her lab partner, fellow geek Henry (Justin Long of Jeepers Creepers) at the graduation formal, but she backs out. But not before prancing around in some very pretty pink lace panties and bra. I am not sure if this is the scene she begged the director Tamra Davis to let her show her breasts off but was refused. The three former friends meet to dig up their box and exchange insults. Now this is what is really stupid, after eight years in the ground this cardboard box has not deteriorated or become dirty with its only protection being a plastic grocery sack. Yeah right, that box would have broke down and disintegrated after a few years in the ground, and not be crisp and clean as the day they bought it. Well Mimi informs the girls that she is heading to Los Angeles to audition for a record label that advertised an open audition and Kit and Lucy are welcome to come. Kit informs Mimi that she has to plan her wedding to her fiancé who is at UCLA, she hasn’t seen him since Christmas break and Lucy is going to work at the hospital to please her dad. When Kit’s main squeeze can’t come home, she decides to go to him and Lucy wants to visit her mother in Arizona that abandoned her when she was three, so they meet Mimi for a road trip west. The driver is Ben (Anson Mount of Boiler Room), a former convict that the girls believe murdered someone. Yet they travel across the country with him and their parents don’t even know whom they are with. Oh did I mention they all share the same motel rooms.

All in all, a very predictable cross-country road trip of young girls and a boy, or shall we say not a boy but not yet a man. We see Spears in her panties, a cute little karaoke number, the girls get sloshed and spill confessions and the virgin gives it up. You can’t have a fun road trip without a convertible, but the girl’s unsecured hair is always picture perfect even after traveling all day, and let me tell you I own a convertible and your hair is never picture perfect when the top is down. Well since I am not the target audience in this film I will be generous because it wasn’t that bad. Not that bad if you are a young girl or boy looking for some mindless entertainment. So for Brittany’s debut film, Crossroads, I give it an eight on the About-Movies.com scale.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:02 AM

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