featuring Madonna, Whitney Houston, and other 80's pop icons

Been There, Done That
by: peter naldrett

Terrible film, terrible soundtrack. From the moment I saw the trailer of 13 Going On 30 I struggled to find reasons why this film was made. The structure of the film had been seen before with Big and the fact that this one has pretty women in dresses is not going to swing it, I'm afraid.

Jennifer Garner (who?) stars as Jenna Rink, a 13 year old on the brink of womanhood who wishes that she was older and, surprise surprise, wakes up to find herself aged 30. Sound familiar? Well, seems as the film is set in 1987, the soundtrack will sound familiar too.

There are 13 tracks on board, and it's unlucky for those who buy it because it's a collection of drab songs. Madonna's "Crazy For You" is about as good as it gets, though this is one of her poorest moments. From there, it's downhill as we listen to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", Pat Benatar's "Love Is A Battlefield" and Soft Cell's "Tainted Love", which sounds incredibly out of place here. And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, up pops Vanilla Ice and his "Ice Ice Baby", which surely should have been confined to the musical dungeon by now.

The release of the film and the soundtrack is hoping to cash in on the bubble-gum teen market, and it may do well out of it. But the less of these we see in the future, the better. 17-Aug-2004 10:43 PM