Metacritic reviews

Highbrow self-appointed guardians of culture need not apply, but those who loved "Cool as Ice" have at last found a worthy follow-up.

So vanilla yet so transcendentally sleazy that its target audience seems to be pubescent girls and dirty old priests.

Spears, Davis, and company are well aware that they're making nothing more than the cinematic equivalent of Spears' glossy bubble gum pop -- but that's exactly the problem.

The movie is a lumbering load of hokum, but unlike those other recent pop star white elephants -- it's at least watchable.

Less a movie than a mind-numbingly dull road trip.

What it's really about, of course, is the very delicate marketing problem of turning a super-bland pop star into an acceptable human being onscreen. [4 Mar 2002, p. 90]

Spears is filmed and costumed in such a harsh, unflattering manner that it looks like Christina Aguilera bribed the crew to make her rival look as hideous as possible. Spears' ubiquity has spawned an inevitable backlash, but the awful Crossroads ought to do more harm to her career than even the most powerful Britney-basher.

Awfully lame bigscreen debut for pop diva Britney Spears.

Go see Crossroads if you want to hear Britney sing or see her wear next-to-nothing. But otherwise, avoid this train wreck at all costs.

It does wonders to a critic to know that [Britney] could be a continuing font of teen and post-teen kitsch for years to come.