No words can describe how painful it was to sit through this deeply awful film--yet another in a long line of cartoon classics turned into dreadful, live-action nonsense.

Josie and the Pussycats are a trio of female rockers instantly catapulted to superstar status overnight, by talent impresario Alan Cumming. Cumming, along with a sinister Parker Posey, attempt to brainwash America's youth by unleashing subliminal messages through the Pussycats' music.

First of all, I got the joke and it wasn't funny. Josie and the Pussycats is an all too obvious satire and takes a rather offensive look at the world of music, and how bands are marketed. With pretentious jabs at the likes of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and N-Sync, this awful comedy would rather degrade pop music than embrace it, and to me, that's in really poor taste. I can't say that I'm a big fan of the recent onslaught of teen pop sensations, but to each his own. This film also suggests that our youth are incapable of thinking for themselves, and while there may be tiny iota of truth to that, this film takes it ridiculously overboard.

The Pussycats themselves are quite likable. They are played by Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid and Rosario Dawson. Yet while their charm level is satisfactory, it never amounts to anything, because our fearless heroines are trapped in a cinematic hell.

This movie was written and directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan (they directed the uninspired Can't Hardly Wait, then followed that up by writing another terrible cartoon turned movie, Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.) The jokes are stale to say the least. For example, when MTV's Carson Daily and Tara Reid (a romantic item in real life, for those of you who might give a crap) finally share the screen together, the end result is laughable, and not in a good way.

I'd also like to vent my displeasure with all the companies that have whored their merchandise in this stupid movie. You know who you are. There was so much shameless product placement in this picture, that it made me want to puke. The film-makers wanted to have their cake and eat it too, but by trying to satirize merchandising, while wading knee-deep in it, they shot themselves in the foot. They stepped in it and tracked it all over.

I grew up on Hanna-Barbara cartoons and I love all of them. It saddens me that the makers of this live action Josie and the Pussycats couldn't come up with something more creative. They couldn't even get the costumes right. The recently deceased co-creater, Joseph Barberra has to be turning in his grave. I hope he comes back to haunt everyone responsible for this tedious exploitation, in a way that Scooby and Shaggy would be proud of.