Of all the idiotic things in "Honey," perhaps the most insipid is the constant grin on the face of Jessica Alba.
Whether her character is supposed to be sad, glad, mad or indifferent, Alba wears the same vacuous, Barbie-like expression, which suggests the filmmakers could have replaced her with a mannequin and still gotten the same performance — or perhaps a better one.
And saying that Alba's perpetual smile is the dumbest thing in this movie is saying a lot. This urban dance drama is filled with howlingly bad dialogue, painfully clichd characterizations and plotting that is so convenient, so contrived, that it rivals daytime soap operas.
The only thing that separates "Honey" from cinematic turkeydom — just barely — is the dancing and the hip-hop/R&B soundtrack. Unless you're a fan of those, you're better off avoiding this one.
Alba plays the unlikely named Honey Daniels, a talented twentysomething New Yorker who has two dead-end jobs — (bartender and music-store clerk) while she yearns for her big break. And she believes it may have finally come when a music-video director (David Moscow) notices her in a club and gives her a job dancing in one of his videos.
The next thing you know, Honey's actually choreographing dance moves for some of the biggest names in the hip-hop world. But her success comes at a cost as Honey suddenly finds herself estranged from her friends and finds that she has no time for either her new boyfriend (Mekhi Pfifer) or the at-risk youths (Lil' Romeo and Zachary Isaiah Williams) she's trying to save from a life of crime.
Director Bille Woodruff's feature filmmaking debut is a rather inauspicious one, with all the subtlety and depth of a music video — not too surprising, since that's been his forte to this point.
Of course, it doesn't help that the movie's success largely depends on the quality of Alba's performance. Unfortunately, all she really seems to be doing here is showing off a penchant for smiling and bumping and grinding, as well as baring her midriff.
"Honey" is rated PG-13 for scattered use of strong profanity, some innuendo-laced dialogue, a pair of brief scenes of violence (a dance-club encounter and some slapping) and brief drug content (a drug transaction). Running time: 95 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com