Suddenly, I have a horrible feeling I completely misjudged What A Girl Wants. I gave that movie 2 out of 10, thinking it impossible for the similarly-themed Lizzie McGuire Movie to be even worse. I was wrong, which presents me with a conundrum score it a 2 and pretend its on a level pegging with WAGW, or drop it down to 1, a score normally reserved exclusively for Nicole Kidman films. I think Ill do the first one.
In case you dont know, Lizzie McGuire (played by Hilary Duff) is already a well-known name on the tweeny-bopper circuit thanks to a strangely popular Disney Channel TV series. Having stumbled her way through her junior high graduation ceremony, Lizzie sets off for two weeks in Italia with best chum Gordo (Adam Lamberg) and the rest of her class.
While sight-seeing in Rome, she bumps into 17-year-old Paulo (Yani Gellman), whos one half of an insipid Italian pop duo and also a bit of a smoothy. He claims shes the spitting image of singing partner Isabella and, given that shes also played by Duff, you can see his point.
Paolo claims Isabella cant sing a note God knows what Simon Cowell would say. Anyway, you can see where its going thats right, he wants the cripplingly-shallow Lizzie to take her place in the limelight. So, before you can say why on Earth am I even watching this pile of mince, hes convinced her to join him in a Milli Vanilli-style awards ceremony scam.
Regular and wholly unnecessary – interruptions are provided in the form of Lizzies crudely-drawn animated alter-ego. How are we supposed to concentrate on paying attention to the rank-awful script, flaw-packed plotline and crudely-disguised advertisement for Duffs looming pop career when this irritating caricature keeps popping up and making witless and instantly forgettable remarks?