When 'friends' dragged me to Spice World a few years back, I was convinced I'd never see anything worse. Sadly, I've been proven wrong. This is the most torturous, pretentious, incompetent mess of a movie I have ever seen. Don't believe the reviews that suggest this film is visionary or a classic. The songs are ridiculous: the groans at the beginning of each one were deafening. The "Piccadilly Lily" song must have been done 15 times. There is nothing visionary (or even mildly interesting) here, only a long string of poorly-done Fellini ripoffs -- actually, that's the whole movie. It was like a train wreck. This was by far the longest hour and 45 minutes of my life. The movie made me long for death. My fellow audience members screamed and screamed as minute after endless minute and song after horrible song beat us into the ground. People were pleading for other audience members to kill them. Other kind-hearted viewers tried to distract the crowd by juggling and reading Moby Dick. Some, like myself, simply attacked the screen. Watching this self-obsessed piece of garbage was like having sharp nails scraped along the chalkboard of our souls. I can understand why one other poster joined the Navy after seeing this movie, and also why the Navy showed it: it destroys your soul and leaves you with a desire to kill everything on earth. I am very opposed to capital punishment, but better to be put to death than live 2 hours to watch this movie: it shows that people have a seemingly endless capactiy for torturing each other. The dialogue is terrible, and the movie is so VERY talky. There is virtually no action aside from singing and lusting. Mostly, Merkin is reflecting on his life and what an amazing genius he is -- we can only wonder in horror at what period of human history would regard the man as anything but an egomaniac who should never have been allowed near a stage or a camera. As one character comments of the film Merkin is making (the movie is best described as a cross between "8 1/2" and "Lolita" made by Andrew Lloyd-Webber loving monkeys on LSD), "It's the end of Western Civilization!" We couldn't agree more: after being subjected to Hieronymous Merkin, I no longer fear hell.
