Spice World (PG, 1998)

Before Mel B. signed on to be a hoofer on Dancing with the Stars, before Victoria became the most famous (and frighteningly skinny) of the Footballers' Wives by marrying David Beckham, and before both Geri and Mel C. admitted to having had eating disorders, and before all of them talked about a reunion tour, they were just five perky girls with perky music. And for a brief time, they took over the world. Spice Word is a fictional look inside their essentially cheery and PG-rated tour.

Forget any concept of plot, story development, or character development. Like The Monkees before it, SPICE WORLD is a surreal and wacky, but essentially harmless romp through the fictional world of the Spice Girls at the height of their fame. It's complete with an Austin Powers-style rec room for the girls, Meat Loaf as the driver, and an intercom system on which manager Clifford (the always-loony Richard E. Grant) barks out the orders of the day. But it gets loonier: There's "the boss," played by Roger Moore, who hands out gibberish code for Clifford to interpret, all while petting his cat or feeding a pet pig -- really. There's an evil newspaper editor who, sick of the girls getting good press, commissions a creepy bald guy (the movie's take on Charlie's Angels Creepy Thin Man) to stalk them and make up bad news about them. And then there's an odd subplot about friend Nicola (Naoko Mori) giving birth at any moment, with all five girls as the baby's godmothers.

The best scenes are when the girls switch up their costumes and try on one another's personas (Posh as Baby is hilarious). Also memorable is a look into Ginger's girl-power fantasy world where she changes into Bob Hoskins in a phone booth. They even have a brief homage to Monty Python with their Ministry of Silly Dance Steps German dance instructor. Nothing in this movie makes much sense -- which may annoy some parents watching -- but it's upbeat, pop-music-infused fun for tweens and teens.