Susan Granger's review of "Honey" (Universal Pictures)
If you blend "Flashdance" and "Fame" with a dash of "Saturday Night Fever" and a sprinkle of "Glitter," you'd whip up something on celluloid resembling this saccharine dance piece.
The good-natured story revolves around Honey Daniels (Jessica Alba) who dreams of dancing in a music video. During the day, she teaches hip-hop classes to underprivileged kids at a neighborhood recreation center. Later on, after she works the evening shift as a bartender, Honey oozes onto the dance floor with her street-wise girl-friend Gina (Joy Bryant), where all eyes are focused on the fluid undulations of her bare midriff. But the stare that matters belongs to video director Michael Ellis (David Moscow), whose leers express both his personal and professional interest in her moves, choreographic and otherwise. And that's just the beginning of Honey's meteoric rise to fame and fortune. Unfortunately, however, success means less time in the 'hood, hanging out with her fella Chaz (Mekhi Phifer) and the kids who adore her. And then she discovers that her old dance studio has been closed down for being unsafe. Good grief! How will she cope with this daunting dilemma? Could it be the old "let's put on a show" gambit?
Known best as TV's "Dark Angel," Jessica Alba is unconvincing as a Harlem 'hood hoochie whose mother (Lonette Mckee) has high aspirations for her. Leaving no simpleminded cliché unspoken, screenwriters Alonzo Brown, Kim Watson and Marc Platt show zero imagination as they pitch predictable dialogue to the MTV crowd. And music video director Bille Woodruff has no concept of feature-film pacing. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Honey" is a forgettable fairy-tale 3. The only highlight is Missy Elliott doing a cameo, as herself.
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