Spoiler Warning: This review goes into plot details and specifics of the of the film. If you haven’t seen this film and want to, proceed with caution.
Well, it’s come to this.
For a while, I wasn’t sure what movie I’d do for my final entry in the Summer Blockbusters that Weren’t series. I knew it would have to be something special. Sure, I could do one of the more remembered big-budget bombs. There’s always Last Action Hero or Waterworld, but people know about those, and a lot of them, myself included, kind of like those flicks. I thought about watching Fant4stic or The Mummy from 2017, but those are just regular bad, more dull than anything. Of course, Battlefield Earth is out there, but everyone and their suppressive mothers have talked about that thing. No, I had to pick something truly unexpected, something bafflingly incompetent, with no artistic integrity whatsoever. So, my friends, I give you From Justin to Kelly.
I say this film has no artistic integrity because it doesn’t. It was produced without any ambition, no story or arc that needed to be filmed, nothing that makes any part of this movie worth the time to read the synopsis. From Justin to Kelly is less a movie musical than a quick cash grab. As most are probably aware, American Idol was/is a reality show that premiered on Fox in 2002, and took the country by storm. It’s basically a karaoke competition that regular citizens watch and vote on. The careers of its contestants are pretty hit or miss. Quite a few winners ended up fading into obscurity, while some runners-up still have careers today. Regardless of quality, the show was hugely popular for a long time, and I admit to having watched it myself for a few seasons. As such, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that when the first season was a hit, producer Simon Fuller decided to capitalize on that success however he could.
What was surprising, however, was that he thought a movie was the right way to do so. First season winner Kelly Clarkson and runner-up Justin Guarini were certainly talented performers, but neither had any acting experience. It’s not unheard of for singers and musicians to star in their own movies of course, but that usually only happens after this celebrity has been in the public consciousness for some time, and thus has a solid handle on their own presence and charisma. Even then, it’s usually advised that they play characters as close to their own personalities as possible, such as an artist trying to make it in the music industry. That way, the singer does as little acting as possible to avoid embarrassment, and the heavy lifting is done by the more experienced actors around them. There are many examples of this approach working, such as Purple Rain, 8 Mile, and my last topic for critique, UHF. Hell, even Can’t Stop the Music managed to get that part right. Which is why it’s so shocking that From Justin to Kelly (J2K) got it so painfully wrong.
This whole idea is asinine because, as I said before, Justin and Kelly are not actors. Why on God’s green Earth did Simon and Kim Fuller, as well as director Robert Iscove, feel the need to put them into a Spring Break beach movie where they would have to act? In his review, Todd in the Shadows brought up a far more logical idea: they should have played singers in a competition who fell in love. You know, easy, simple, closer to their actual selves. But alas, this is the film that got made, so this is the review I am making myself write.
J2K tells the “story” of two college kids who travel to Fort Lauderdale with their friends for Spring Break, then meet and “fall in love.” I use quotation marks because “fall” isn’t really appropriate. More of a slight trip really. The meet cute of our star-crossed lovers is a ten second dance on a beach to a shitty song I can’t even remember, and for some reason Justin thinks they’ve made a connection. They then meet by chance in a women’s bathroom when he needs to escape through the window (don’t ask). Kelly gives him her number, but the paper gets wet, making it useless. Rather than, I don’t know, getting her to rewrite it (seriously, she’s still there) he wanders around until he finds her friend Alexa (Katherine Bailess). She secretly gives him her own number because…jealousy? There’s a bunch of stupid misunderstandings until the leads inexplicably declare their love for each other and spend the rest of their lives together…at least until they head home and never see each other again.
It should probably go without saying that Justin and Kelly have absolutely no chemistry, romantic or otherwise. Actually, that’s not true. They have all the sizzling romantic chemistry of a pair of sibling-cousins trying to hide their feelings from each other, their parents, and themselves. They barely have any screen time together, and when they are together their connection is so loose that you could fit a flagpole between them. At one point they wear matching white tracksuits that make them look like low-level Russian gangsters, and sing a duet on a white boat. They sing this song while separated by about six feet, and without ever even looking at each other. Throughout the entire 81 minutes, there is never any indication that these crazy kids have anything in common and even less on-screen evidence that they are attracted to each other.
Of course, part of this problem comes from the fact that Justin and Kelly are not actors. The pair are clearly uncomfortable being the leads of a movie, even during the musical numbers. The two of them are singers, very good singers, but the second they have to sing while acting or dancing, they lose any charisma or confidence they may have had before. It doesn’t help that the choreography is amateurish at best. I have no experience choreographing a dance number myself, but as an avid enthusiast of musical theater in both stage and film, the sloppiness on display here is shocking. With maybe one exception, entire musical numbers pass with the most complex dancing being a few sways of the hips, which was clearly meant to keep the stars in their comfort zone, but instead shows off just how bad of an idea this whole enterprise was. You may not notice the dancing though, thanks to the atrocious costume design, which almost seems as if it was intended to draw the eye away from the choreography.
Justin, for his part, actually tries throughout his screen time. He’s not a great actor at this point, by any means, but he’s expressive, and displays some natural reactions. Maybe it’s because he knew this movie was his last real chance as a mainstream star, but he does show a degree of genuine acting talent (No surprise that he’s gone on to a relatively successful Broadway career). Kelly though, maintains the same expression throughout. Her’s is a look that distinctly screams “I do not want to be here.” Since J2K’s release, Kelly has repeatedly expressed her disgust with the film, and how she begged to be let out of her contractual obligation. It shows. Even when singing, Kelly looks and acts as dead-eyed and wooden as can be. Her desire for Justin would be unconvincing regardless, but she doesn’t seem like she wants anything other than to be anywhere else. Not helping is the fact that both are badly miscast. Justin, with his mop-like hair and beanpole frame, never once is convincing as the bad boy party animal the script keeps telling us he is (then again, neither are his friends). Then there’s Kelly. I hate to comment on the physical attractiveness of actresses, but let me get this out of the way: Kelly Clarkson was, and still is, a very attractive woman. But she is not a sexy movie star. She has more than one guy swooning over her throughout this movie, and it’s impossible not to ask “why?” The script keeps trying to convince the audience that she is some irresistible sexbomb, but not even Kelly herself believes it. It’s bad enough when you have experienced actors in roles they’re not cut out for. It’s another thing when the miscast aren’t actors to begin with.
Interestingly, even though the filmmakers had enough faith in their stars to cast them in roles outside of their normal personas, they still seemed to feel the need to add in a bunch of other subplots, as if they still didn’t think they could carry a movie. These subplots are mostly just filler to drag this movie to an already overlong 81 minutes. Both stars each travel with a pair of Grease 2 rejects that make my Dragon Con group look like dangerous thugs: Justin with his buds “The Pennsylvania Posse (?)” and Kelly with her friends from Texas. Justin of course has a nerdy friend trying and repeatedly failing to meet a girl he’s talked to online. This plot was old in 2003 and it has aged terribly in a time where online dating has become normalized. Plus, with all the Nokia product placement on display, you’d think the two of them would just exchange numbers. His other friend keeps trying to make money with Spring Break party events, like the world’s most G-rated whipped cream bikini contest, but keeps getting busted by some hot cop for violations, even confessing when she has no evidence. He’s so annoying that when someone goes after him for hitting on his girlfriend, you want him to get punched.
Kelly has her friend Alexa, who the folks over at How Did This Get Made referred to as “Paris Hilton’s stunt double,” and like so much of the rest of this movie, it is impossible to explain why they are friends. They slut-shame her throughout, and when that’s not happening, she’s more over the top, randomly evil than Lisa from The Room. She even gets a villain song! For whatever reason, she’s jealous that Kelly has apparently found “true love” with Justin, and does everything in her power to sabotage them, rather than just letting them get their 2-day infatuation out of their systems. She goes through the motions of lying, calling another guy who has a crush on Kelly to complicate things, and outright hitting on Justin herself. Then, when Kelly looks through this girl’s phone (with no resistance), her villainous plot is finally revealed, and she… makes a heel-face turn and sets the two back up. This is the main story arc, people. This isn’t even an arc. It’s a mockery of an arc. No one’s motivations are believable or make any sense. The main characters have no agency of their own, and their attraction is based on jack. The villain’s goals change scene-by-scene. Literally nothing here works, and it’s a disaster to watch.
Future Disney Princess Anika Noni Rose plays Kelly’s other friend Kaya, and partially due to being easily the best actor in this thing, her subplot is the only bright spot. She meets and starts a relationship with a busboy named Hector, and their romance is the only part of this movie that comes anywhere near the vicinity of anything resembling emotional honesty. The two of them have decent chemistry, their attraction seems to develop naturally, they go on an actual date dancing, etc. Then, she decides to get involved in his daily life by sticking up for him to his boss, and gets him fired. He is, understandably, pissed, and accuses her of being a tourist who’s just going home in a few days to tell her friends about the fling she had on Spring Break, which, of course, she is. This subplot could have been the main plot of a decent movie, maybe even deconstructing teen romance tropes.
Problem is, that’s not what this is. Hector’s outburst is framed as being wrong, and HE is the one who has to apologize to her not two scenes later. In fact, she is the jerk for inserting herself into this guy’s life and making it more difficult, acting like she has any say in his life when they have no future together. Two things make this worse: first, his boss’ only crime was making him work during the busiest time of the year. It’s a Florida beach during Spring Break, and he works in the service industry. The service industry sucks, I know, I worked in it for years, but it has busy seasons and people are expected to work during them. Plus, he apparently got off early enough to go dancing before, so his boss couldn’t have been that much of a dick. Next, the whole complication is waved away with an explanation that he found another, better job elsewhere. How? He’s a busboy. Did he move up to bartender or manager overnight? This explanation, with no effort or development, acts only as an excuse to let Kaya off the hook for her selfish behavior. Anything worthwhile about this story quickly gets flushed down the toilet, forgotten like your first goldfish.
You may have noticed I haven’t written much about the music. There’s nothing to write. The only songs I remember are covers of songs by the Go-Gos and K.C. & the Sunshine Band. The final song doesn’t even get a chance to finish, the movie just fades out as the cast is singing and dancing their glorified karaoke, as if the movie itself just wants them to stop. The staging of the numbers is illogical. Songs will start in characters’ heads then they’ll start singing in real life. Do the musical numbers happen in real life or are they projections of the characters’ thoughts? Is it both? I genuinely have no idea (For context, this was only a year after Chicago’s perfectly staged sequences). J2K advertised the story as “Music will bring two strangers together.” Music has nothing to do with the plot. At one point, my wife turned to me and said, “I’ve never heard this song before, and I’ve seen this movie twice.” That should tell you how memorable the music is. If, out of curiosity, you want to find the soundtrack, good luck, it was never released. Do you have any idea how fucking bad your movie musical must be if you can’t even justify selling a soundtrack?
Now you may be thinking, “Ricky, you’re being a little unfair here. This is a movie for tween girls, it’s clearly not for you.” And you’re right. I am not in the targeted audience for this. When I watch a movie, I do try to keep in mind who it’s trying to reach, and J2K is not targeted towards adult males. However, there have been plenty of other films that were not made with my specific lens in mind, and I have enjoyed those very good films. Mean Girls and Bring it On come to mind. J2K fails not because it’s aimed towards tweens or Idol fans, but because it is a witless, unnecessary, cynical, lazy cash grab. It’s a PG-rated sex comedy, so it’s basically the least sexy sex comedy in existence. Characters are constantly talking about their sexcapades, yet with one or two exceptions, dance past the subject without using the word, like a lame version of the Contest from Seinfeld. The whipped cream bikini contest has extras that are very clearly wearing actual bathing suits. People are constantly shown drinking, yet no one is ever drunk, so I assume they are all drinking Mountain Dew. The “wild” Spring Break parties consist of, at most, a few dozen flat-ass extras wandering around, at times clearly staring at the stars. To give you an idea of how clean this “sex comedy” is, my wife was homeschooled, and was not allowed to view anything with the slightest amount suggestive material, and she was allowed to watch this multiple times as a child! Other attempts to capture the zeitgeist include an extreme sports hovercraft competition that makes little sense, has little to do with the story, and manages to make Die Another Day look like Casino Royale.
Fortunately for society, there would be no American Idol movie franchise in the wake of J2K’s astonishing failure. There was no From Clay to Ruben the following year, though I imagine the sexual chemistry of that hypothetical film would be more convincing. There was no starring vehicle for Taylor Hicks to make him an action star, entertaining as that might have been. Carrie Underwood got her shot as an actor, but we all know how that went. Any attempt to expand the franchise into other mediums died an ignoble death. American Idol has since stayed where it belongs: on T.V, where we can watch with bizarre fascination the people who are willing to make asses out of themselves for our amusement, with the occasional star shining through. J2K, however, belongs in its own realm: lost to time and taste.
GRADE: F
Your enjoyment of From Justin to Kelly is entirely dependent on three things: What time you’re watching it, who you’re watching it with, and what it is you’re drinking. There is nothing of value to be gained from watching this film. It has no reason to exist, and comes from nothing resembling artistic integrity (even The Last Airbender came from something that was great). At a mere 81 minutes, it feels longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. J2K makes High School Musical look like West Side Story. I lost count of how many times I shouted “Oh bullshit” at the screen. I felt dirty just inserting the DVD into my Xbox, and it only got worse from there. The script, the acting, the music, the characters, the dancing, all of it is bad. That doesn’t even touch the production values, or how often you can spot the crew and equipment. Or how the volume shifts throughout, or the obvious ADR. As the final film in this series, it’s a masterpiece of crap, and should only be watched to see how bad it really is. Perhaps one day, this movie will get the midnight movie treatment.
That finally brings us to the end of the Summer Blockbusters that Weren’t this year. Next, we take a shift in tone to look at the films with ambitions towards awards season. To celebrate the upcoming annual Oscar Season, we will look at a series of films I have dubbed “Oscar Bait That Didn’t Take,” movies that failed in their awards ambitions for one reason or another.
