Britney Ever After

Where to begin? I feel as to not make my comment way too lengthy, as I could go on all day about this travesty, I'll briefly hit every key point:

• Acting/Casting - The main girl looks like she's maybe heard one Britney Spears song in her life, and like she's heard even less about the stars' life and career before signing onto the movie. She acts like the bubblegum Britney for the entire film, and it is extremely infuriating almost to the point of parody, like she doesn't even give a sh!t about the story she's trying to encompass even a little. She doesn't look like Britney, she certainly doesn't dance like Britney, she's not Britney... I'll sum up this portion of my review very quickly by saying that the only person that doesn't look miscast in this and doesn't do a terribly unfortunate job at their performance is the mom, who honestly could have pulled off Britney Spears better.

• Directing/Editing - Choppy, chop, chop mess. Everything felt so overly rushed and poorly edited. We're flying scene to scene with no time to grow any attachment to what's going on in front of us. You'd be better off watching the real life videos again of what Ms. Spears had to go through in order to get a better grasp on the situation, because along with no acting depth, there is no depth in how the director is trying to accomplish every single scene. Such poor direction.

• Facts/New information - Aside from a few things with Justin Timberlake I was unaware of, this movie doesn't bring anything new to the spotlight that has not already been covered by the media or by Spears herself. They're all jumbled facts and info to begin with, and I know it's supposed to just be a chronicle of her life so far, but as other commentators have stated, there were big parts of her life left out, both good and bad.

• Songs or lack thereof/Britney's own rejection - By far one of the worst factors of this movie? The shining star of the film did NOT want it being made, and it shows more than ever. The only music that it shows the woman portraying Britney singing in the film are songs that Britney covered from other artists. ("I Can't Get No Satisfaction, though it's the Rolling Stones version in this movie of course, and "I Love Rock 'n' Roll".) All the other songs? Generic, dumb, badly timed Pop written for the movie it seems that is not worthy of imitating the multiple, high-tempo, sexy Dance beat albums that have been so publicly adored and acclaimed by Ms. Spears. She did not want this movie being made, and I can see why. But aside from the fact that she knew the movie would be bad, it's just an insult altogether. Britney is a normal person like you are me. Yes, a staple icon, but a person nonetheless, who knows that if anything was going to come out documenting her life, she would want full hand in it, and she'd want it to be done with so much more care and understanding than these Neanderthals tried accomplishing.

In the end, the only reason I did not give it a 1 is because I made it all the way through it without vomiting, and surprisingly enough have seen a small handful of worse films. Britney Ever After, however, was a complete mess and useless effort on any and all levels.

"Britney Ever After" (2017 release; 90 min.) is a bio-pic of Britney Spears which premiered this weekend on Lifetime TV. As the movie opens, we are in 2008 and Britney is being interviewed in connection with her comeback. We then go back to "Florida 1998" when Britney is about to embark on her first tour, opening for *NSYNC. Britney soon reconnects with childhood friend Justin Timberlake and soon the two become an item. Meanwhile her mom and dad can't stop arguing about the smallest thing. At this point we are 15 min into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: first, this is an unauthorized bio-pic, made without any blessing or cooperation from the Britney camp. In and of itself this shouldn't stop the movie makers from putting together an interesting movie. Alas, they didn't. The movie heavily focuses on the Britney-Justin romance (taking more than a third of the movie), and then rushes through the rest of the material. The quickie Vegas wedding and subsequent dissolution is literally dealt with in a minute or so. Career highlights (such as VMA 2000) and lowlights (VMA 2007) flash by in no time. Worst of all is that there simply is no depth in any of the main characters, it all just happens. Not helping matters is that the movie producers don't have any original Britney music in the film, so the only and few performances we get are covers Britney did in her career (including the Stones' Satisfaction and Joan Jett's I Love Rock n Roll). All the other music is Britney-reminding club music. Natasha Bassett, the Australian actress playing Britney, does the best she can with the material given to here, but she can't save the movie from its strictly by-the-numbers feel (Bassett does the actual singing of the 2 covers mentioned earlier). Please note that, other than the very last minute of the movie, nothing beyond 2008 is covered.

As a Britney fan from the early days on, I was simply curious about this movie, and went into it without a lot of expectations. Even those low expectations weren't met. Given the tumultuous ups and downs Britney has had over the years, surely there is a great movie to be made one day about it all. Alas, "Britney Ever After" is not that movie. If you are a Britney fan, you will learn nothing new that you didn't know before. Viewer beware.

The movie was all over the place. The script seemed like it was written in a weekend. It never felt like a movie about the life of Britney Spears. The acting was just horrible. The casting was all wrong. The guy playing Justin Timberlake! Why?! I'm a 56 year old African American woman and would have been better cast to play Britney than Miss Bassett!

Initially from the opening shots it felt like I was watching an SNL version of Britney's life ..From the cooky vibe, to the tacky accent to the overly hyped up 9 year old silly girl performance of the lead, I knew I was watching a joke and a disaster, but I was curious.

The girl has 0 sex appeal nor conviction nor even physical attractiveness (with all due respect to her off course) but its insulting to one the biggest pop icons in the world who's known for being sexy, sultry and physically perfect.

I assumed they could not use the real music for copy right infringement issues that could result in a law suit, and that is what happens when you make a movie about someone whose life is not even half way through being lived and does not approve of the story. That affected the story GREATLY ! Not a single Britney song lol

There are levels of bad, and I came into this with poor expectations, but it surprised me just how truly horrid it was, the acting the direction, the story layout, above all the lead, and everything in between. The amateurish direction, the poor production values and the terrible cast truly destroyed a powerful story into a messy, clichéd film.

An opportunity to recreate greatness and capture vulnerability, iconic moments of real life, style and inspiration missed.

Final Grade F-

First of all, watching the movie does not give you any information or help you understand what really happened during the tough years.

Second, even though I don't know much about Britney, I do know that a lot of the movie was inaccurate.

Horrible acting.

Horrible casting - the main character does not make you feel like you are watching something about Britney's life because she does not look like her AT ALL. And the JT character -- really?? From there it only got worse - I didn't realize the guy playing Kevin was supposed to be K-Fed.

Horrible storytelling - they jumped all over the place and skipped LOTS of important things (both good and bad).