Josie and the Pussycats combines the fast, furious feel of a garage-band single with the frenetic kinesis of a music video. The film updates the comic of the same name, tracking grrl-band Josie and the Pussycats as they get caught up in success. The movie’s main target of attack is mass consumerism (boo Abercrombie!), but it also gets in smart jibes on boybands (the show’s spoof boyband, Du Jour, has a hit single named “Backdoor Lover”), “Behind the Music” and other aspects of ’00s pop culture. It’s great campy fun (Alan Cumming and Parker Posey obviously relish their villain roles) with a catchy soundtrack, underpinned by an admirable powerful-grrl ethic. Rachael Leigh Cook’s eyes sparkle with charisma as bandleader Josie, Tara Reid makes an agreeably ditsy Melody, and Reid’s boyfriend Carson Daly parodies the hand that feeds him. Is Josie a signal of the end of mindless pop music and culture? Probably not, but as supposedly disposable movie fluff it’s savvier than it has any right to be.

– Daryl Sng

Josie and the Pussycats

directed by Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan

starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, Rosario Dawson

Universal Pictures