Complete rot, of course. But highly entertaining rot, all the same.

The "plot": A film in which the Spice Girls play parodies of themselves (much like those old Beatles movies, only far worse), in the lead up to the biggest concert of their careers. A smear campaign threatens but is overshadowed by the Big Question: can they be the Spice Girls and have lives as well?

One horribly engaging aspect is the way you're never quite allowed forget that it's all just a movie. If it's not the deliberate cliches (like the flashback scene to the days when they were just five friends with big dreams), the obvious plot contrivances, or the blatant celebrity cameos, it's that bloody subplot about some guy trying to convince the girls that the world needs to make a movie about them. This subplot starts taking over the movie toward the end, in a sequence where the guy describes his vision to the girls' manager while, elsewhere in London, the things he describes actually happen -- culminating in a moment so ludicrous you just have to laugh, when the big double-decker-bus-jumping-the-river stunt just happens to coincide with the guy describing some cheap ways of doing the special effects.

After the movie's over, the rest of the cast get to do what the stars have been doing all along -- play themselves, in between shots and complaining about the characters they have to play, while the Girls peer out of the screen and make personal comments about various members of the audience.

Scene to watch for: The Spice Girls, alone in the woods, watch in awe as a UFO lands -- and the aliens who issue forth bashfully ask for their autographs.

Celebrity cameo to watch for: Bob Hoskins as Ginger Spice.

Best line: Alien speaks in weird alien tongue to second alien. Subtitle: "Yes, but last time you were sure it was them, it turned out to be a flock of sheep."

So silly, you just can't hate it.