Crossroads (2002)

A reputation can follow someone or something for a long time. That reputation could be based in some sort of reality, or it could have been blown out of proportion. Whatever the case, that’s how people see that person or thing. They see it with that reputation until they actually get to know that person or thing. Only experience can break a reputation. If you spend time with someone or something, it doesn’t matter what their reputation is. You have your own feelings that will affect how you feel about them.

Reputation can be a major influence on people’s opinions of movies. There are so many movies and television shows being released on a regular basis that it is impossible to watch them all. There’s just no way someone could do that. Even if a person didn’t sleep and spent all their waking life just watching movie after movie after television episode after episode, there is absolutely no way that person could ever see everything.

That’s where a reputation could come in handy. Critic reviews or word of mouth could influence a person on whether they seek something out. Bad reviews and bad word of mouth could turn them away from something, while glowing reviews and positive word of mouth could lead them to watch something. A reputation that a movie builds up could influence who sees it and when they see it.

However, sometimes a reputation doesn’t do a movie justice. There could be something with glowing reviews that doesn’t quite live up to the high expectations. There could be something that got trashed in the press that enjoyable. There could be a movie, like Crossroads, that gained a reputation as one of the worst movies of all time, but is very okay. It happens. I’m here to tell you that Crossroads isn’t nearly as bad as people might have you think.

Crossroads followed three newly-graduated-from-high-school friends on a cross-country trip from Georgia to Los Angeles, via Tucson. Lucy (Britney Spears) was escaping the overprotective household of her father (Dan Aykroyd) in search of her estranged mother. Kit (Zoe Saldana) was off to meet up with her long-distance boyfriend who seemed to also be distancing himself emotionally. Mimi (Taryn Manning) was a pregnant teenager who wanted to audition for a singing talent show, ala American Idol. They hopped in a car with Ben (Anson Mount), a young man with a mysterious criminal past, and hit the road.

The strength of Crossroads wasn’t in the story. The movie was a fairly standard teenage road trip movie, though less raunchy than counterparts like Eurotrip or Road Trip. A bunch of young adults got into some troubles on the road. But they were always there to bail each other out. An overbearing parent wanted to know where his kid was. He travelled to get his kid back. There was a romance brewing. You know, all the normal beats for this kind of road trip movie. If people were only knocking it for following the same beats as so many other movies, that would be fine. But the reputation of being one of the worst movies of all time says that people’s issues were more than a simple unoriginal story complaint.

The strength of Crossroads also wasn’t in the serious subject matter. I don’t really know where I would fall on the serious stuff that Crossroads had. On one hand, it worked. I think all of the serious stuff was effective. This just maybe wasn’t the movie for it. Lucy found out her mother left because she never wanted a child at that point in her life and the only reason that she wasn’t aborted was that her father wouldn’t let her mother go through with it. That’s a hard-hitting story beat that worked quite well. If it was in another movie. It felt out of place in Crossroads. Same with Kit finding out that her boyfriend raped Mimi at New Year’s, or Mimi falling down the stairs and miscarrying her baby. These things were important to the movie and were effective for what they were. But all three of these serious moments felt out of place when the rest of the movie was so playful.

Now it’s time to get to the strength of Crossroads. The strength of Crossroads was the rekindling of the friendship between Lucy, Kit, and Mimi. The three of them had been friends as children but had fallen out of friendship through their high school years. As the road trip commenced, they reconnected in a way none of them expected. They still cared about each other, even though their lives had gone separate directions. They were at a crossroads in each of their lives and realized that their bond was what was important, not all the other issues they were dealing with.

This friendship showed up in different ways. There was the mystery of Ben’s time in jail. The three of them gossiped about how he murdered someone. They thought he was a killer. They thought they were driving with a killer. It was thrilling and chilling for them. The way they gossiped with each other nailed the friendship aspect.

Most importantly, though, was the music. Crossroads was a movie that starred Britney Spears. It was bound to have her sing at some point. That music was all over the movie. That music was all over the friendship. The three friends would sing as they drove. They would be in the back seat together, belting out to N*Sync (funny because of Britney’s relationship with Justin Timberlake), Shania Twain, or any other song that came on. They got up on stage together at one point to make a little bit of money performing some tunes. Mostly one tune, a cover of I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll. Even the talent show at the end got a Britney Spears performance of I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman. The music and friendship tied together to be the driving force of the movie. It was the main strength of Crossroads. It was what, in my opinion, kept the movie from being one of the worst of all time. This stuff was actually pretty good.

So there you have it. A movie with the reputation of being one of the worst of all time. A movie I watched and realized that the reputation isn’t all that accurate. Was Crossroads a great movie? No. Not at all. Did it have some stuff that could have been done better? For sure. The serious story beats didn’t fit with the tone of the rest of the movie. But did it also do some stuff well? More often than not, yeah, it did. Crossroads was fine. It had the potential to be great and didn’t live up to that, but it was fine. It’s still an entertaining little road trip movie that I might end up seeing again.

A reputation could make the difference between a movie finding an audience or not. A reputation could keep someone from being popular. Reputations precede a person or thing and can be hard to get out from under. But once you get to know someone or something, you can rid yourself of seeing them through that lens. You understand the reality of the situation. A reputation can only hurt before the experience. The reality of the situation is all that remains after. Don’t let a reputation turn you off from someone or something.

Now it’s time for everyone’s favourite part of these posts, the notes:

• Justin Long returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Crossroads. He was previously a part of Movie 43, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, and Yoga Hosers. That’s a lot of movies!
• Ritchie Montgomery joined the Sunday “Bad” Movies Five-Timers’ Club this week. He has been in Playing for Keeps, Monster in the Closet, Road House 2: Last Call, Santa Jaws, and now Crossroads.
• Another Five-Timer this week was Kim Catrall. Aside from Crossroads, she has been in Baby Geniuses, Sex and the City, Sex and the City 2, and Police Academy.
• Brandon Henschel returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Crossroads. He was already seen in Gigli and From Justin to Kelly.
• You probably recognized Dan Aykroyd in Crossroads. He was also in Nothing But Trouble and Pixels.
• Shonda Farr was in both Crossroads and Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
• Finally, Beverly Johnson had roles in 54 and Crossroads.
• Have you seen Crossroads? What were your thoughts? Did you like it at all? Let me know in the comments, on BlueSky or on Threads.
• BlueSky, Threads, and the comments are good places to suggest movies for me to check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies.
• Now for the look ahead. I’m not going to promise anything for next week. I haven’t started writing the next post yet. There are two movies I’m choosing between. They’ll be the next two posts, which will be my Spooky Season posts for the year. One of them will be about the recently released movie Stream. The other will be about a movie from 2021 called Bearry. I’ll probably do Stream first, but I’m not going to say I for sure will. I don’t know. Anyway, those will likely be the next two posts unless something crazy comes up.

Second Glance (1992)

Originality isn’t in the story being told, but in how the story is told. That’s something that I’ve said a lot over the years in Sunday “Bad” Movies. If you think originality is in the story itself, then you must think there is absolutely nothing original coming out. Everything tells the same story as something that came before it. There are simply some details changed to make it feel like a different story. And that’s where you get originality.

Some stories feel much less original than others. I’ll give you that. Studios frequently try to ape what other studios have made to cash in on the success of a hit. Think back to the 1988 when Die Hard found success in the box office and every studio decided to copy the idea for other movies. Speed was considered “Die Hard on a bus” (though, I think there are some major differences in story structure, but that’s another post for another time on another blog). Under Siege was considered “Die Hard on a boat.” Paul Blart: Mall Cop (a little later than the 90s, when most of these Die Hard on a… movies came out) was “Die Hard in a mall.” Sometimes studios come up with similar ideas at around the same time. White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits. It happens.

Some of the more interesting and fun blatant copycats to look at are Christmas movies and Christian movies. They don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re copying other stories and putting a holiday or religious packaging on them. Violent Night was kind of a Die Hard that got more Christmas themed. The Princess Switch was a holiday themed telling of The Prince and the Pauper. There was an animated Christian movie called Finding Jesus that took cues from Finding Nemo. And then there’s the movie I want to get into a little bit of detail about, Second Glance.

Dan Burgess (David A.R. White) was a teenager growing up in a Christian home. He was part of the Christian club at his high school. He helped other teens who were in bad situations by showing them the way of God. But he wasn’t satisfied. His parents wouldn’t allow him to go to parties with the other teens. He couldn’t go after the girl he had a crush on because she was a little bit of a bad girl. Dan wanted to live freely, without having to always follow the way of the lord. Luckily for him, an angel would grant his wish. Dan would see what life was like if he wasn’t a Christian.

That last little bit of description might have tipped you off on what Second Glance copied. It was a Christian version of It’s a Wonderful Life, a movie that already had an angel showing a man that he needed to be around because his presence was a good influence on his community. Second Glance would do the same thing, but have it based solely on Christianity. Dan would also exist in the new timeline, as opposed to nobody knowing about him at all.

Much like It’s A Wonderful Life, the story of Second Glance was about the world being a better place when the main character was there, being the person he was. The town of Bedford Falls would be a terrible place without the presence of George Bailey. George had kept the people and the town safe throughout the years. Without him, it became unsavoury, and many people suffered undeserved consequences.

The same could be said for the town in Second Glance. Without Dan following the ways of the Lord, the town and the people fell upon hard times. Dan’s friend Scotty died. The Christian club at the school no longer existed. Everyone was worse to one another. Dan learned this because he was able to see it firsthand in the alternate reality the angel placed him into. He was able to see what the world would be like if he wasn’t a Christian, and the world was bleak. By the standards of a movie that wasn’t post-apocalyptic.

After contemplating suicide and attempting it by jumping off a bridge, George Bailey was shown that Bedford Falls needed him. They needed him just as he was. A Bedford Falls without George Bailey wasn’t Bedford Falls anymore, quite literally. The same could be said for Daniel renouncing Christianity. An agnostic Daniel, or atheist, wasn’t Daniel. It was bad for the town. Too many things were changed for the worse if he wasn’t Christian. He could see that. He was shown that. It renewed his faith in God and put him back on the path of making things righteous again.

That said, one of the movies was about restoring one man’s will to live. The other was one man’s faith in a higher power. Both had religious aspects, since both characters were thrown into their alternate realities by angels. However, a lecture by the angel near the end of Second Glance made that film much more about spreading religion than being a good person. The angel simply wanted God to be believed in by everyone. The good was a byproduct. God was the important part.

Second Glance wasn’t an original story. It shared many beats with another, more popular movie in It’s a Wonderful Life. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was an unoriginal story. It took those beats and told its own story with them. Second Glance was a religious story told through the structure of It’s a Wonderful Life. It was an original telling of a non-original story, and I think the way it was retold was original enough to override the unoriginality.

Something being original doesn’t come from the story itself. It doesn’t come from the structure, or the characters, or the individual story beats. Originality comes from the whole. If a story is told in a different way, even if it’s the same story you’ve heard or seen many times before, that makes to story original. Originality comes from the way a story is told, not the story itself. That’s my perspective. That has always been my perspective. I hope I’m not the only person who feels that way.

You know how these end:

• I mentioned The Princess Switch in this post.
• Second Glance featured David A.R. White, who was in God’s Not Dead, God’s Not Dead 2, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, God’s Not Dead: We the People, and Brother White.
• Have you seen Second Glance? What did you think of it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, on Threads, or on BlueSky.
• If there’s a movie you think I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know. Leave it in the comments or hit me up on Threads or BlueSky.
• I already have a next movie lined up. I already have a new post written. I just have to edit. It’ll probably go up next week. Crossroads. The Britney Spears movie. Come back for that one soon.