Blyss's Movie Review for:

Main Cast of Characters:

Jamie Kennedy...........Trent

Freddie Prinze, Jr..........Brad

Steven Petrarca..........Joel

Park Overall.........Melba May

Grace Zabriskie..........Sherri

Veronica Cartwright...............Dottie Delgado

Don Harvey..........Flint

Sandy Martin..........Edith "Ed"

Sheila Tousey..........Hurricane

1999; Rated: R. Genre: Drama;Comedy; 90 minutes

Small life, big dreams, goin' nowhere

The movie begins when we are introduced to Melba May of whom the above statement references. She is having a poker game with a bunch of her friends and her best friend, Hurricane. Hurricane offers to do her dishes for her but Melba is out of soap. She goes down to the mini-mart and comes back to find her husband and her best friend sleeping together. Melba is infuriated and runs her car into the trailer and then drives off. Melba calls her psychic who tells her that she is a queen and she will be surrounded by three kings. Three young men enter the picture, Trent, a naive young man who is only out for a good time, Joel, a brooding young man, who appears to have had a recent break up with his girlfriend Sarah, and Brad, a wanna-be Hollywood agent who is just as insecure as anyone else. They breakdown in Melba's little town and are forced to stay for a little while because they have no spare. Melba gets dressed up and goes out on the town because Flint, her husband, is not holding her down anymore. She meets these three guys. Trent calls her "The Sparkler" and says she is beautiful. He even dances with her. Brad then dances with her and then they leave. Later when Melba gets home, she finds one of her earrings missing and is forced to meet back up with the boys in Vegas to get it. While she is there, she says she will visit her old friend from high school Dottie Delgado. Trent meets up with Melba and she starts being good luck for him as he is playing Blackjack. Brad insists on him dumping her and he is forced to reluctantly. Melba keeps playing and wins a ton of money. Meanwhile, Flint finds out that Melba has won a sweepstakes of a million dollars. Now he must find her in 72 hours, or she will forfeit the prize. But Melba is ready for a new life. Will she go back to Flint or follow her three kings?

This movie begins very slowly, but believe it or not, there seems to be a story here. Each guy has something that they don't want the others to know. Brad does not want the other guys to know how soft-hearted he actually is. Trent does not want the other guys to know how inexperienced in love he is. And Joel? Well, his secret is pretty big and you are going to have to watch the movie to find out his secret. Melba found out what her problems were and she had the means to fix them while meeting many colorful characters along the way.

I found it funny and interesting that someone who looked as old as Dottie was still a stripper. It was gross, really. Then to find out that she had fallen in love and who she had fallen in love with, shocked Melba May as well as the viewer probably.

Out of all of the characters, I probably identified with Trent the most of all of them. I will be the first to admit that I can be very naive about certain aspects of my life. It has almost gotten me into trouble many times. I think Trent felt that way too. But because of his naivete, he was able to understand more when Joel finally confided his secret in him. He reacted badly at first but he was the main one to understand. I don't even know if Joel told anyone else in their group because that was never revealed.

I guess the parts I hated the most is the parlor scene with Flint and his mother-in-law. He was so stupid to threaten her by pulling the woman's hair getting a perm and then that horrible woman started screaming. I just wanted to slap her. I also hated all of the scenes in the strip joint. They were really gross.

Overall, Sparkler is a feel-good movie. You start out feeling really bad for these characters but then they come together in such a way that you know their lives are going to be okay. Too bad it is not like real life....

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this movie a 6

Blyss