From Justin to Kelly

Unlike some of the entries in the endless parade of crap reviewed on this site, you might actually have heard of "From Justin to Kelly: The Tale of Two American Idols". This name recognition could potentially raise two problems. First is the prospect that you might already be familiar with the movie and thus take issue with something incorrect I might write. This differs from a review of "Idiot Vampire Movie #277" or whatever other nonsense I write about, where only four people on the planet have seen the movie in its entirety and I could have written the entire thing using a Ouija board without anyone knowing better. The second problem might be that you have actually seen the movie and so this review is redundant. Of course, anyone who watched this movie probably had enough pent up self loathing that they have already ridden the vein pain train in a lukewarm bathtub. In which case, congratulations on being dead! It is obvious you didn't quite make it into Heaven, which has a standing gag order against anything related to "American Idol". Better luck next time.

What do you get when you take two flash-in-the-pan celebrities from a reality TV show and fling them in front of a camera without any lessons in screen acting, line reading, or simulating basic human emotion? "From Justin to Kelly" decided to find out. I suppose it's fitting that one of the worst shows on television today would have managed to spawn a Hollywood film that manages to raid the lint traps of sheer ineptitude so severely that it makes "Battlefield Earth" look like a sci-fi epic for the ages. Not only could neither Justin nor Kelly act their way out of a paper bag, but they wouldn't be qualified to deliver bag lunches to the other soap actors on set. Thankfully, one half of the dynamic duo has already returned to blissful obscurity. We can only hope this movie will soon follow. I am not sure if this movie is taking place in an alternate timeframe where Kelly was never discovered and instead was forced to perform to audiences numbering in the single digits, or if it's supposed to take place in 2007 when the same will probably be true.

I suppose I can't fault the producers of "American Idol" for wanting to make another quick buck off their inexplicably popular TV show. Nor can I really fault two okayish singers lucky enough to land a starring role in a movie out of the blue because they weren't as horrible as everyone else. Someone has to be responsible for this mess, though, and I guess the most obvious blame falls on the people who voted Justin and Kelly into their positions as the final two American Idols: namely, the American public. This is all your fault, jerks. You should be ashamed.

Before Kelly Clarkson actually started producing some decent pop, this was pretty much the only product of American Idol for a bit. And what an product it was. The sheer lack of enthusiasm put forward in this movie is, to say the least, daunting.

Set during a spring break, Kelly, the clichéd Texan girl who wants to be a big singer but is stuck in a lowly bar, runs into Justin, who smiles an abnormally large amount and has a really, seriously ridiculous perm. I mean, come on. It looks like cotton candy. They both go to Florida, and watch loads of "babes" and do a bunch of PG-13 related spring break hi-jinks, of which there aren't many. Hence why they're college hi-jinks. Doi.

Anyway, after a rather dumb meet cute between Justin and Kelly, the plot, which would have difficulty filling up a 22 minute sitcom let alone this 90 minute trash fest, begins to unfold. Basically, Kelly's blonde friend wants Justin, and he wants Kelly, so to get revenge on him, she gives him her phone number, and then makes it look like Kelly doesn't care about him. I'm sure you can imagine the complex and thought provoking scenarios that this could spin out into, but don't hurt yourself.

A quick note on the musical numbers: you have a mute button. Employ it LIBERALLY. Thank you.

Obviously, From Justin to Kelly is meant for twelve year old girls, who have seen the same plot a couple of dozen times before, only this time it doesn't involve Barbie and/or Fairies (insert joke here). If you are a twelve year old girl, go rent Sleepover. It's much better than this, and it has cute boys. If you're not a twelve year old girl (which is a good thing), stay, stay away from this factory made piece of crap.

IMDb should consider creating a "0" rating below the current "1".

The description should read "dreadful".

Truly, a complete waste of time and resources.

This is the one aspect of being a father I can do without: Having to sit through an 82 minute eternity of this garbage.

The acting by these two American Idol "stars" is naturally primitive, however, one would think ("one" being the producers who are responsible for the millions of dollars it takes for a major motion picture) that someone would have given these kids acting lessons.

What may even be more frightening is that this picture probably made oodles of money.

Sometimes it is embarrassing to be an American.

Miss this one.

And I only watched the first 25 minutes. It is inconcievable to me that anyone could make a film this hopelessly, endlessly, mind-meltingly bad. This is not a bad movie - it's a war crime. Somehow the producers actually managed to cast supporting players bad enough to make Kelly Clarkson and even the talent free Justin Guarini seem good by comparsion.

The alleged "choreography" ammounts to nothing more than frantic flailing of limbs. Accents come and go with wild abandon. The songs are, to put it charitably, forgettable. I'm surprised "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson isn't credited as a writer, because the dialouge is that witless and badly phrased.

This is the worst thing humanity has ever done.

This movie is terrible because it was made 40 years too late. The American Idol hype fueled the studios ambition to crank out a quick blah blah story about Justin and Kelly. The end result, a soup sandwich with no audience. The fact that what works on television doesn't always work on the "big screen," is true in the case of From Justin to Kelly. The production value is professional and many of the dance numbers took long hours and hours to practice and to get right. Still, nobody cares. The movie itself (on paper) was a joke to begin with. There are only a handful of lines worth hearing through this 90 minute movie. The rest can be considered pop-culture junk or better yet, left overs that nobody wants to have for dinner.