Coverage:

Josie and The Pussycats, is another in a long series of current pop-culture television shows or video games turned feature length film. For some reason, Hollywood feels it’s necessary to saturate the moviegoing market with these 1970’s retreads.    In this case, Josie and The Pussycats is based on the popular Saturday early morning 1970’s cartoon show, where an Archie and Friends comic-type girl band tour the country and manage to solve mysteries between gigs.    Riverdale rockers Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook), Valerie (Rosario Dawson) and Melody (Tara Reid) -- the Pussycats – in this rendition are a chic garage band who become superstars when a record executive named Wyatt Frame, (Alan Cumming) signs them to his label MegaRecords. Frame gives the group a feline makeover, and it isn’t long, before the girls have the number one single and are on top of the pop charts.    The film begins with a no talented boy band called Dujour who disappear after they discover a strange background track on their new record.    Frame replaces Dujour with Josie and The Pussycats. Keeping true to the cartoon show formula, infamous dark forces are soon at work as Josie and her troupe become dupes for MegaRecords.    The plot thickens, or become more confusing when it’s discovered that MegaRecords, owned by the evil Fiona (Parker Posey),is actually government-funded. Fiona wants to use the Pussycats’ music to hide subliminal messages aimed at brainwashing America’s youth – the country’s most cash-ready demographic.    The real plot of this bubble-gum caper (like the Power Puff Girls) is the fact, "Girls just want to have fun while saving the day."    OK. Josie and The Pussycats isn’t purr-fect. And that’s expected with this kind of comic book fodder is served up on the big screen. And its plot to will probably embarrass anyone over the age of 10. However, like last year’s Charlie’s Angles and Spice World (’97), it’s also guilty junk food for the spring moviegoer waiting to devour the blitz of summer fast-food blockbusters.