A joyous, hilarious send-up of rock star pretensions and an enchanting celebration of "girl power" in pop culture.

Without much of a plot to speak of and relying almost entirely on the girls' star power and charisma - which they have in spades - turns out to be a truly entertaining movie for anyone with even a bare knowledge of the Spice Girls' history, which in this age of absolute over-saturation, is hard to avoid.

Disarmingly, the film thus acknowledges the Spice Girls' flash-in-the-pan status and lets them kid around about their frankly synthetic career.

The movie essentially mirrors the non-diva, down-to-earth personalities on which their act is based, and which include a sizable amount of self-parody.

Critic-proof, devoid of plot or acting, and quick to mock anyone who might make something of it.

It's all pure, brainless fluff, but it's unpretentious and "Wannabe" is damnably catchy.

Although the film is clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of the Beatles' classic, it's several long strides behind, lacking the same sense of originality, spontaneity, high energy, and joi de vivre.

Shabbily filmed, thoroughly harmless Official Product.

There are several non sequitur subplots woven together -- and that, along with a dearth of acting talent, is Spice World's biggest flaw.

Bad as it may be, though, the film falls that one precious inch shy of being quite so awful that it achieves cult status; in short, it's just not bad enough to be any good.

A promotional tool that establishes its superfluousness simply by existing, this clumsy, smirking movie has a bitter soul.

They're so detached they can't even successfully lip-synch their own songs.

Rarely has one movie seemed so predestined to reduce any and all attempted criticism to so many column inches of impotent gibberish.

The director is Bob Spiers, though it's hard to judge whether he actually turned up on the set.