Spears debut 99 minutes too long

[Photos: Paramount Pictures] Don’t give up those Pepsi commercials yet, Britney. Spears, right, plays Lucy in Crossroads, the popster’s debut. Also starring, from left: Taryn Manning, Anson Mount and Zoe Saldana.

By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 15, 2002

Pushing Pepsi in 60-second commercials is one thing. Convincing moviegoers that you're someone else in a feature-length film is more than Britney Spears can handle right now.

The effervescent pop diva makes her big-screen debut in Crossroads, a bland title for an even more colorless movie. Director Tamra Davis essentially devised a screen test for Spears, allowing the 20-year-old phenomenon to do what she does best, starting with wearing skimpy underwear and copping Madonna's beat.

Stick around long enough and, oops, she'll do it again.

The nicest thing to be said about Crossroads is that it isn't Glitter. Mariah Carey's thunderous flop is still the best punchline for jokes about singers with no business in the movies. (Why didn't the chicken cross the road? Because Glitter was on the other side.) Crossroads is easier to swallow because Spears isn't ego-tripping. She looks and behaves like just another mallrat imitating her favorite singer, who happens to be her.

Spears plays Lucy Wagner, a Georgia peach without any discernable accent, a virginal valedictorian who, according to her biology lab partner, could never tell the difference between a frog and a toad. That geeky classmate is her prom date and eager accomplice in a deflowering that doesn't occur. She's saving herself for marriage, or at least a slacker hunk like Ben (Anson Mount), the chauffeur of her road trip with two lifelong friends.

Lucy, Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning) each have a goal: Lucy wants to meet the mother in Arizona who deserted her. Kit has a UCLA fiance to visit and Mimi plans to audition for a recording label despite pregnancy and stage fright.

Kit (Zoe Saldana), Mimi (Taryn Manning) and Lucy (Britney Spears) make a little spending money at a New Orleans karaoke bar in Crossroads.

None of these appointments go as planned, but the car radio works, allowing the girls to sing along with Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain and an inside-joke 'NSync ditty. That is, when they're not doing a Joan Jett number in a New Orleans karaoke bar, making enough money in tips (huh?) to buy a new radiator and a Garden District suite. There's even an element of science fiction involved. How else to explain the notion that glum, jowly Dan Aykroyd could sire Britney Spears by impregnating Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall?

A rudimentary screenplay and Davis' uninspired direction keep Crossroads in line with every other MTV Films production. However, you get the sneaky feeling that Spears is capable of something more than this. The camera adores her, and there are moments when a graceful change of expression suggests the singer might be an actor, too. It's all part of the glacial maturation of a former Mouseketeer who, like the film's already-hit single is Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.

So, she acts a little tipsy when everyone else is drinking beer and Davis cuts away from Lucy's sexual submission to waves crashing on the beach. Spears tosses out a couple of tame profanities, giggles about touching "it" and tugs her lingerie to PG-13 exposure levels. Her Pepsi co-star Bob Dole won't be offended.

Neither will teenage girls looking to Spears as a role model and finding something nicer than naughty. That's the core audience for Crossroads and they're not picky.

The film does have a purpose: If you carefully check the movie timeclock this weekend, you can pick those hours when the Gap won't be busy.

Crossroads

• Grade: D
• Director: Tamra Davis
• Cast: Britney Spears, Zoe Saldana, Taryn Manning, Anson Mount, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Cattrall
• Screenplay: Shonda Rhimes
• Rating: PG-13; sexual situations, profanity, mature themes
• Running time: 100 min.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.