Honey
Review written by: Alex Sandell

Losing her job as the leading character on television's Dark Angel may not have turned Jessica Alba into a raging junky or a temperamental security guard.  Instead, she took on the starring role of Honey.  Sadly, by the time this clichéd piece of cinematic hogwash reaches the midway point, you begin to half-seriously ponder the benefits of washed-up starlets killing themselves, rather than to carry on with a life filled with one film after another, seemingly meant to torture anyone with more than a single brain cell and an attention span surpassing that of a ferret.

Honey tries to have some sort of story.  Honey Daniels (Alba), not realizing that In Living Color was cancelled years earlier, wants to be a Fly Girl, or something.  She shakes her money maker and makes neat noises come out of her mouth, such as, "bling."  If this girl keeps it up, she'll soon have more street-cred than Britney Spears.  I believe Britney said "schizzle my nizzle," once.  But afterward, she gave a girlish giggle and said, "I'm just Britney.  I don't know why anyone pays attention to me."  She went on to sing a song about masturbation, while exposing her left boob.  Anyway, back to this Honey calamity:  Some dude sees Honey dancing and wants her in his next video.  From there, Honey's success just keeps growing until she turns into Paula Abdul a dance choreographer. 

Like Lizzie McGuire, in one of 2003's surefire Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, poor Honey has to decide if she really wants all this fame, or if she still wants to be Jenny Honey from the block.  In the meantime, there are about a million mind-numbing caramel-popcorn subplots featuring Jenny falling in love with Chaz (Mekhi Phifer).  This Chaz dude has all the right moves, is a good guy, and has countless connections.  Honey suddenly realizes that fame isn't about her, it's about the good it can bring to those less fortunate than her.  Well, I think that's sort of the message.  Really, Flashdance Save the Last Dance Honey is all about Jessica Alba's abs. 

The film is sort of It's a Wonderful Life for rich people whose lives are already wonderful.  Instead of lowly townsfolk pouring money onto George Bailey's desk, we have those at the top deluging the downtrodden with dance moves.  You wouldn't believe what this chick can do by shaking her moneymaker (there, I said, "moneymaker" — did my street cred go up, y'all?).  She saves the youth residing on "the block" from growing up and killing each other, and/or actually making something of themselves, without the help of some dancing fool.  She outlaws 40s.  She dances her way to the President and pulls that stick out of his ass.  Okay, the last two things don't really happen, but her dancing does pretty much save the youth. 

Director Bille Woodruff, the genius behind N'Sync, Britney Spears and Toni Braxton videos, directs the dancing scenes, not too surprisingly, like they're an MTV video.  It's a Wonderful Life comparisons aside, this guy's no Frank Capra.  The film is written by a couple of clowns who haven't written anything worth mentioning, before.  Oddly enough, after Honey, they still haven't written anything worth mentioning.  At least they're consistent. 

This movie is bad.  It's so bad, there's a chance that even the tweens won't like it.  But the tweens are like that LIFE cereal dude, they like anything!  I don't know.  Either I'm overestimating their intelligence, or Hollywood is wrong in thinking that they're a bunch of Lemmings ready to march off a cliff, to the tune of "Oops, I did it Again." 

By the time Honey prematurely ended (the projector broke fifteen minutes before the finale, which was one of the happiest moments of my life), I began wondering if Ashton Kutcher was going to run out and reveal to a squeamish Jessica Alba that the entire film was the biggest prank in the history of MTV's Punk'd.  Alba would look around, find the cameras, and begin to flick them off.  Have you ever noticed how often celebrities flick off the cameras on Punk'd?  It's sort of funny.  If I was on Punk'd, I'd refuse to flick off a camera, just because I'd like to do something entirely different.  I guess that's what separates me and the birdbrains behind Honey.

On a scale of 1-10?