USA TODAY International Edition
‘Spice World’: Rewatching it 20 years later
It’s been two decades since our bland existences became zestier when five of the most famous British pop stars in the universe made their big-screen debuts.
That’s right: We are celebrating 20 years of spice being added to the lives of every boy and every girl on the anniversary of Spice World, which premiered Dec. 26, 1997, in the U.K. before hitting American shores Jan. 23, 1998.
To mark this girl-powered occasion, we took the liberty of rewatching that beloved but critically panned flick about the Spice Girls and their double-decker tour bus. And we realized that the film was packed with many more pop-culture references and meta moments than we realized at the time.
Here are four ways the movie made insider jokes that likely went over the heads of young fans.
1. Bond references abound
If the opening sequence featuring the Spice Girls’ silhouettes wasn’t an obvious enough 007 call-out, Roger Moore’s cameo is. The seven-time James Bond actor, who died this past May, plays one of the greatest characters in the 90-minute film. His “Chief,” a Bond villain parody, strokes a pig and speaks in unintelligible riddles, like: “Remember the headless chicken can only know where he’s been. He cannot see where he’s going.”
There are plenty of additional nods to Britain’s favorite spy, including a dressup montage sequence with Victoria, aka Posh Spice, aka Mrs. Beckham, wearing a Pussy Galore costume.
2. Meat Loaf is in this film
Yes, the singer Meat Loaf plays the girls’ tour bus driver, Dennis. In his most memorable moment, Dennis explains that he will not fix the toilets on the bus. “I love these girls, and I would do anything for them, but I won’t do that,” he says, in a not-so-subtle play on his famous single I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).
There are a few more famous men who have quick cameos: Elton John, Elvis Costello, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
3. The entire movie is about making the movie we’re watching
Here’s the basic premise: Mel B., Mel C., Emma, Victoria and Geri are about to do their first major live show. However, the singers are so widely adored that a paper finds them too boring to write about. So a publisher hires a spy to get dirt on the girls so they can sell more tabloids.
Meanwhile, movie producers are pitching story ideas to the Spice Girls’ manager. Also: There’s a chase scene, the band’s friend goes into labor, and there’s an arbitrary alien visit.
One of the failed movie pitches: The ladies would be a super-spy team called “Spice Force Five,” much like Pulp Fiction’s “Fox Force Five.”
Ultimately, we wind up watching the successfully pitched Spice Girls film. Think Adaptation, but a moronic musical ripoff of The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night with a reference to the “bomb on the bus” plot of Speed.
4. The Girls make fun of their Spice personas
In Spice World, the Girls make a few self-aware jokes about the iconic nicknames that describe their one-dimensional public personas.
Most notably, there’s a moment in the film when Emma, better known as Baby Spice, realizes that she’s “always going to be seen as Baby Spice, the sweet and innocent one” — says the singer who was just 21 when the movie came out.
“Even when I’m 30,” she realizes, horrified.
Bunton is now 41.
Before that, the girls goof on each other when they swap clothes in the dress-up montage sequence.
Scary Spice in Ginger Spice’s clothes says, “Blah blah blah, girl power, feminism, d’you know what I mean?”
Posh in Baby’s pigtails tells the camera, “My mommy is my best friend.”
Sporty in Posh’s LBD sticks her nose up and says, “I’m just too posh.” (Which is ironic, considering Mel C. was slammed for using a “terrible posh accent” in an interview last year.
Baby as Scary wears cheetah print and complains, “Are we finished yet?”
Ginger as Sporty wears windbreakers and speaks with an accent so thick you can’t understand her. (Mel C. explains her Spice World accent later: “I’m not from London, you know. I’m from Leeds.”)
The pop stars are also aware of how the end of their film is ultimately disappointing. In a post-credit scene, Ginger talks directly to the movie audience.
“It’s the sad anti-climax,” she says. “It’s all over. Back to reality.”
Baby addresses those watching on video: “Was there nothing on the telly, then?”