In brief: Not too bad, considering the limits of the genre, and the intended audience.

Running time: 1 hour and 29 minutes (not counting end credits).

Written by Alonzo Brown (feature film debut) & Kim Watson
Directed by Bille Woodruff (feature film debut)

---CAST:
Jessica Alba Honey Daniels
Lil' Romeo Benny
Mekhi Phifer Chaz
David Moscow Michael Ellis
Zachary Williams Raymond
Joy Bryant Gina
Laurie Ann Gibson Katrina
Anthony Sherwood Mr. Daniels
Lonette McKee Mrs. Daniels (Richard Pryor’s love interest from Brewster’s Millions)
Alison Sealy-Smith Raymond's mother
Jadakiss Himself
Ginuwine Himself
Tweet Herself
Missy Elliott Herself
3rd Storee Themselves
Sean Desmond Himself

Honey may be proof that despite recent films like Glitter or Coyote Ugly, the Character-Aspires-To-Be-An-Actor/Singer/Dancer GenreTM is not completely dead. It may not winning first place in a marathon or bench pressing 300, but it’s not completely dead. Let’s just say that it up and about, without life support, and can go for the occasional jog without feeling too winded.

Universal held a screening tonight for Honey, the new urban drama starring Jessica Alba as an aspiring dancer/choreographer who must choose what’s most important to her in life when her big break presents itself, so after last night’s School of Rock, I’ve now seen two cliché-filled movies on two consecutive nights about characters aspiring to the music industry. What’s interesting is the difference in the disparity between what I heard about each film, and my reaction to them. Despite all the people I spoke to who attended a press screening for School of Rock who said it was better than average, I didn’t think it was anything more than mediocre. By contrast, it seems that many have already dismissed Honey as this year’s Glitter, including one person I spoke to who attended an earlier screening of it, but having been a fan of Jessica Alba’s cancelled-too-early TV series Dark Angel, I was curious enough to see it, and I thought it was okay. Not great. But not that bad.

Jessica Alba plays Honey Daniels, an aspiring dancer/choreographer from dancer parents who works at a record store by day, tends bar at night, and teaches hip hop at a rec center to neighborhood kids in between, all the while hoping for her big break. One thing that strikes me about the film as I write this is how hard it is to figure out what, if anything, was the conflict in this film. One would think that the movie would use Honey’s struggle to get her big break to reveal more about her character, and to show us the pain of her doubting her own talents so that when she achieves success in the end, it is so sweet that the audience cheers for her. Actually, what happens is, she gets her big break in the beginning of the film, which not only goes against the cliché set by genre archetypes like Flashdance, but makes it harder to wonder what the rest of the movie is about. What adversity is she facing? Is it her attempt to reach some troubled neighborhood kids by drawing them to hip-hop dance? Maybe. Is the attraction between her and Mekhi Phifer’s barber character? Not much conflict there. Is it her relationship with her parents? Not really. Aside from one line from her mom that she would prefer Honey go into ballet instead of hip-hop, everything seems to be alright on the home front, and her father, who doesn’t seem to have an opinion on anything, pretty much blends into the wallpaper.

So why was the movie enjoyable? Perhaps it was the Rule of Lowered Expectations, in that it simply wasn’t as bad as it’s been anticipated by some on the Internet. Perhaps there are certain clichés that impose inherent limitations on the genre, and going in with that in mind, even a modestly adequate movie is enjoyable after travesties like Coyote Ugly. Perhaps it’s that the dance sequences are nice to look at. Maybe it’s the little things, like watching the way Honey creatively devises moves based on basketball dribbling and Double Dutch jumping. Maybe it’s her sexy, silver-tongued best friend Gina (Joy Bryant, in a far more assuming role than as Derek Luke’s love interest in Antwone Fisher), who has some of the movie’s funnier lines. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that films about the music industry aimed at 13-39 year-olds (the audience that Universal has been recruiting to fill up its press screenings) are in theory, going to be fairly inoffensive, so I didn’t expect anything too edgy. Hell, maybe it’s just because I’m so in love with Jessica Alba that seeing her in those sexy (but not whorish) dance outfits that I didn’t care about anything else. Indeed, Honey, unlike some other current young pop stars, seems to have a sense of ethics when it comes to her career, flat-out telling producer Michael Ellis (Jonathan Mostow, the kid who turns into Tom Hanks in Big, now all grown up) that she won’t take off her clothes for him, and the movie actually seems to have an opinion on the difference between dancing and what it dismisses as “pornography.” This is not only refreshing, but ironic, given that this movie is produced by Universal, and not Paramount/Viacom, which, as the parent company of MTV, the ostensible leader in music-related entertainment for teens, is responsible for vapid fare like Crossroads, a movie in which high schooler Britney Spears sees virginity as something to be denied, and sleeping with a 29-year old stranger as somehow a good thing.

This is not to say that this movie is the epitome of this genre (assuming there is such a thing). In addition to the two-dimensional conflict, which coddles Honey rather than show her suffering in poverty and self-doubt for her art like Flashdance correctly did, some of the dialogue is corny and obvious, particularly in the very beginning. Points of theme and character are stated rather than shown, as when Honey and her best friend Gina deal with having a falling out. The story coddles Honey, making getting her big break seem relatively easy for her, without showing her trudge through thankless jobs like most people in the entertainment industry do. Her parents are little more than ciphers in the story, more akin to inanimate objects than people to whom Honey owes her love of dance or her professional ethics. Most frustratingly, plot developments that could’ve added to the story are flirted with, but dropped. For example, Benny and Raymond’s mother is initially rude and dismissive of Honey’s interest in her sons, resenting the idea that this girl shows up at her door acting as a surrogate mother to them, and there is also some issue of child abuse by the mother’s boyfriend. But nothing is furthered after the initial scene introducing this point, and by the end of the film, the mother is rooting for her sons at a dance presentation, with no resolution brought to either of these two points. Who told her about the dance event? Who brought her there? Why did she have a change of heart? The movie doesn’t think it necessary that we know. Another example is the frightening confrontation between Honey and the drug dealing boss of the gang Raymond hangs out with, who challenges Honey’s relationship with Raymond, a point that is dropped after the end of the scene, along with the character himself. Why not bring closure to this point, even in a cursory manner, perhaps by showing him and the rest of his gang getting arrested, which would’ve elevated the story by filling these subplots out? Instead, a potentially valuable source of conflict in a story that needs it is brought up but not followed-through on. Hell, even the movie’s trailer wants to coddle Honey. In the current tradition of movie trailers giving away important parts of the film, a cameo by Missy Elliott in the film that alludes to its climax is placed in the trailer so that even when things look bleak for Honey, those who’ve seen the trailer know that the Happy EndingTM is just around the next bend.

Most importantly, despite the film’s supposed theme about having to choose between the glamour of ones’ dreams and what’s most important in life (a point that’s been used in both the film’s concept used to recruit respondents for the screenings, and in Mekhi Phifer’s words to Honey in the film), Honey never really has to make such a difficult choice. A scene toward the climax ostensibly has her going through those motions, but the movie cheats by making that choice easy for her because the person giving it to her is such a sleazeball. The movie wants to eat its cake and have it too by having her being given her dreams in the beginning, temporarily lose them, and then, after choosing the less glamorous road, rewarding her by having it dropped in her lap again.

Nonetheless, if you’ve seen the trailer or commercials for this movie, you pretty much know what type of movie you’re getting into, and if you’re not so overcome with skepticism that this will be another Glitter that you’re willing to give it a chance, you might not be too disappointed. The direction by feature film first-timer Billie Woodruff, who’s directed videos for Usher, Toni Braxton and Britney Spears, is adequate. Given that Universal is shooting for a PG-13 rating (as evidenced by the fact that they’re recruiting people 13-39 for the screenings), the film is family-friendly, with zero nudity, zero profanity (that I can recall), dance moves that are relatively tame, and few sexual references, some of which will go over the head of tykes whose parents turned off the news during the Lewinsky scandal. Older audiences who don’t expect a theme that is executed with a great deal of depth, and who watch the film on those terms might just find the predictable story adequate, and the dance sequences and multiple hip hop industry cameos enjoyable as I did.

NITS:
When Honey, enjoying her new career as a choreographer under Michael Ellis, goes to the bank to buy a piece of property for her parents to use as a dance studio after their current one experiences damage from a broken water pipe, the loan officer tells her that she has to put $17,000 down. Honey asks if she can put half of that down, and pay the rest after 30 days, or else the property goes back out on the market. After she (Spoiler Warning) has a falling out with Michael and is blackballed by him, she goes back to the loan officer to ask for more time because of sudden financial complications. The loan officer tells her that she’s already kept the property off the market for two weeks. Didn’t they agree upon 30 days? Or is Honey simply going back to see her after that period is half over? If so, why? Why not just wait until shortly before that period is up, say three, maybe three and a half weeks?