Love is in the air, or at least it will be by, like, Monday as it's that special time of the year again where you are expected to consume goods and / or services in a public display of affection for your significant other. So yeah, me and my partner don't bother with Valentine's Day, but it is a fantastic excuse for me to finally justify spending my hard earned actual cash on renting potentially one of the worst movies I will ever cover on the blog: From Justin To Kelly. Universally panned by literally everybody, even Kelly Clarkson herself, y'know the leading lady, the girl on the film poster, the fucking main star; hated it, wished she didn't have to be in it and singled it out as her biggest, deepest, greatest regret of all time. Probably. I have wanted to cover this movie for so long and paradoxically I am so deeply, deeply regretting the decision to subject myself to this because I fucking hate musicals. And I fucking hate romance films. And this is both of those things?! And it's bloody god damn awful! Why do I do this to myself?! What is wrong with me?!
Pretty much blackmailed against her will, Kelly Taylor (Kelly Clarkson) is convinced to go to Miami for Spring Break by her transparent friends, Alexa (Katherine Bailess) and Kaya (Anika Noni Rose) which just so happens to also be the destination for the world's biggest douchebag trio; Brandon (Greg Siff), Eddie (Brian Dietzen) - actually he's not so bad - and Justin Bell (Justin Guarini). Immediately reporting to the beach everyone has a nice song and dance number which teases a meeting between Kelly and Justin, with the pair still thinking about each other as they report to their respective hotel rooms. After Justin is mobbed by a pack of ladies for... god... bracelets for free entry to the "whipped cream bikini contest" Jesus... Justin dives into the Ladies toilets because yeah, they'll never go in there, where he bumps straight into Kelly. After the pair sort of bond, and Kelly throws him out the window pretty much, she also gives Justin her number on a paper towel which immediately gets soaked when she throws it out the window after him and it lands in a puddle. I'm sure that misunderstanding will have no consequences later... As luck would have it, Justin bumps straight into Alexa who, somewhat disgruntled that Justin fancies Kelly and not her gives him her own number when he asks for Kelly's only to text him later, as Kelly, saying she isn't interested. Meanwhile Kaya has hooked up with probably the only decent guy in this movie so far; Carlos (Jason Yribar) - a Waiter at a beach club who takes her to this crazy cool Jazz bar one evening which is 1,000% cooler than the beach club nonsense. And if that's her singing, and I suspect it is, Anika Noni Rose just blew Kelly Clarkson out the water in her own movie. Moving on... presumably because she's a psychotic bitch; Alexa enters Kelly in the whipped cream bikini contest (to the movies credit; Kelly does call it degrading...) where Kelly discovers Justin is half of the team behind it and she doesn't take it well. Smothering Justin's face in cream and storming off. But then they literally make it up 5 minutes later and agree to go on a boat ride...? With said boat ride and sing song over, Justin and Kelly say an awkward goodbye to each other, as Kaya manages to go and get Carlos fired from his Waiter job, way to go Kaya, and as Alexa gets more jealous of Kelly and Justin she throws a further spanner in the works, pretending again to be Kelly and texting Justin messing up their second date, injecting herself in Kelly's place and trying to talk Justin away from her. Meanwhile Eddie - now firmly established as this movies geeky stereotype messes up his suntan, burning to a crisp, but ends up befriending some older guy; Greg (Justin Gorence) who thinks Brandon is knocking off his girlfriend, and the pair bond as Eddie tries to relationship council him. I think Eddie is supposed to be comedic relief? That... odd scene over with... Kelly and Kaya rock up at a party hosted by Brandon and Justin, with Kelly blowing off Justin as both think they have stood up the other. This segways into another song though performed by Kelly and Kaya which is hands down the best song yet, mostly because Kaya is just so good at this and elevates Kelly with her. It all ends nastily though as Luke (Christopher Bryan) - Kelly's would-be squeeze from back home shows up and immediately makes a move on Kelly which gets Justin very hot under the collar. Deciding to settle the matter in a hovercraft race (I mean what else?) it all goes quite badly for Luke who gets knocked out of the craft and injured. After Kelly sends him, Luke, packing, she proceeds to catch Alexa forcing herself on Justin and gets the wrong end of the stick, as Kaya attempts to reconcile with Carlos who is now working at a greasy spoon café, but he has none of it. Although he regrets it and apologies to her later that night, taking her to a secluded candlelit meal in the middle of a swimming pool. It's uh, classier than it sounds... As Kelly and Alexa watch on, Kelly confronts her about the Justin situation but Alexa lies and says that Justin has been chasing after her with Kelly believing her but later that night when Justin and Kelly bump into each other... again... man Miami is a small place... they argue with Justin finally having enough and storming off, but it's back in the bar that Kelly finds Alexa's phone and realises she has been orchestrating the entire thing. Storming out the bar, their friendship over, Kelly has a sing but then appearing back on the scene is Justin with Alexa, where Alexa admits she can't keep them apart despite trying and that she explained the whole thing to Justin, with Kelly and Justin FINALLY actually getting together.
Can we... can we just address something that's really irritating me. The movie is called "From Justin to Kelly," Kelly Clarkson get's top billing. She's the first person you see in the opening few minutes, she's the first name in the run down, she fucking won American Idol. But it's from Justin to Kelly. Like what, you couldn't put her name first? Is it alpha-fucking-betical?
Ok, so can I shock you? I didn't hate this. Christ what is happening to me? First Teen Beach Movie and now this? I mean, it wasn't without it's flaws and most of it was... mediocre at best, but it wasn't unenjoyable? Kelly and Justin had about as much chemistry as a pair of house bricks and if the entire thing existed to show case the strength of American Idol then it failed miserably, but uh, no, I genuinely didn't want to turn this off at any point.
I mean, I am so out my comfort zone here, and the music, the dancing, is completely not my scene. I am not Kelly Clarkson megafan, obviously, but I will admit that I don't irrationally hate her or anything and she's one of the few chart musicians I genuinely wouldn't turn off or switch over. She's alright. Which is high praise from me. And I knew close to nothing about Justin Guarini going into this, so I am not here for the music and the dancing which is coincidentally the main lynchpin of the entire movie. So maybe in contrast with other films like this it's really bad? And embarrassing? I honestly have no frame of reference.
But one thing I can tell you is that Anika Noni Rose blew this shit out of the water. I can recognize that Kelly Clarkson is talented, no doubt, but Anika bossed this movie. The whole thing should have been about Kaya and Carlos. They were hands down the strongest characters romancewise, and the characters with the most depth. For a movie existing as a commercial vehicle for Kelly and Justin, Anika stole the show for me. Somebody else I knew nothing about going in, but damn she won me over and I wanna see and hear her in other stuff.
Calvin Harris once said making pop music was as easy as making a ham sandwich, and there are alot of over dressed ham sandwiches in this thing. I said earlier I had no frame of reference for these movies, and I don't, but the songs, from what I can deduce are incredibly basic. Even the aforementioned Teen Beach Party did a better job with it's musical numbers and they felt particularly manufactured and soulless here. Which is incredible when you have a strength of talent like Kelly Clarkson who can't even bring them alive. Very, very basic paint by numbers love songs save for the odd one or two that were actually, genuinely interesting to listen to, but on both occasions neither one were performed by Kelly (Anika and Katherine Bailess respectfully) which is incredible when she is supposed to be the main focus of the movie.
Aside from that, as an actual movie, it's clear it tried to paint itself as having more dimension beyond the songs; Brandon being the laddish comic relief getting into mischief, Eddie being the stereo typical dorky character who I think was supposed to be funny, and it was all just fine, but very much supplementary to the rest of the movie. Katherine Bailess, wasn't so bad she was respectfully detestable, as the movie's "villain" if you like and at times it really all felt contrived and predictable. It was a very formulaic will they, won't they romance film and if you've seen one you've seen them all, so it really brought nothing new to the table that hadn't already been tried and tested a 100 times more before now.
And honestly, that is a shame because you had a supremely, intensely strong talent like Anika Noni Rose who is held back, a obviously talented actor in Brian Dietzen (Eddie) who is relegated to supporting cast and a real lacklustre exploration of your movies 2 main singing talents that ultimately fails to impress. Ok yes: I enjoyed this because there was at least enough of an effort made to make it engaging and to make it hold my attention, but it was nothing more than an average, mediocre romance film. If I didn't know going in that Kelly Clarkson was American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, you could easily lose this film in the shuffle with the countless other romance musical movies that get churned out for Valentine's day every year. And I think it's only remarkable now by the sheer virtue that it contains Kelly Clarkson and is written into history as one of the worst movies ever made.
I said at the beginning of this post, that this movie was "bloddy god damn awful" an assessment I made based purely on it's nefarious reputation. And that was an unfair assessment because, shock horror, it wasn't. It didn't break new ground. Nobody was going to come out of this with an Oscar nomination. But chalking it up alongside films like Alone in the Dark, The Room (no I'm never covering it) and Freddy Got Fingered (not covering that either), absolutely no way. It was as bland as an ice cube lolly, there was fuck all chemistry between Kelly and Justin, and it objectively failed to be anything beyond a soulless, manufactured commercial vehicle with zero dimension, but I pick this over those aforementioned titles any day of the week. Except maybe The Room because it's hilarious. 2 out of 5.
