I was going to write a review for this movie when it first came out but I never finished it. As I’m writing this, I’m yet to finish BBB 2 but I saw and heard enough of it to figure out what went on. I’m writing this now because 2 more parts were just released last week and provided what I hope is the end of the story.
For those who don’t know, there are four parts to this movie. Not four videos, four actual parts: Blackberry Babes 1 and 2 and Return of Blackberry Babes 1 and 2. This name was milked for all it’s worth and the filmmaker just decided to prolong the uselessness. Between Tonto’s bendy rollers, the excessive overdo, the fone and the number of times I heard the term Blackberry, this movie was working my last nerve by the end.
There are way too many characters and way too many side stories to begin to explain them without confusion. Just know that the premise of the movie is the addiction to Blackberrys many Nigerian girls apparently have and the foolish lengths some people will go just to show off and the story revolves around a group of frenemies: Vivienne (Tonto Dikeh), Damisa (Oge Okoye), Kim, Keisha aka Geisha (Mary Remmy) and Nichole. There were 2 or 3 other girls in their crew whose names I can’t remember because they did absolutely nothing of worth. Tonto and Oge were at the top of the pack with their 5 to 7 blackberries and all the other girls were killing themselves trying to catch up. Other secondary characters worth mentioning are Apollonia (Eniola Badmus), Muna Ibekwe and Tonto’s uncle because they really are the only ones who were constant through all the movies. There really isn’t much to know other than these girls will do anything for a Blackberry phone and constantly show off.
The producer is the same guy who made Beyonce vs. Rihanna or Beyonce and Rihanna and I am ashamed to say I made it through that joke of a production; I really wasn’t expecting anything from this movie to be honest. For the first two parts, the story was very one dimensional and it suddenly changed in the last two so that it wasn’t really about Blackberrys that much anymore.
Pros:
The movie is funny in parts but then it gets redundant. I think it’s meant to be a satirical look at girls’ obsessions with material things, in this case blackberries, in which case the forming and fonerizing and everything makes sense. Of course they over did it in places, it wouldn’t be a Nigerian film without the girl with one line pouring all her frustrations with her role into that line or without somebody aka Oge Okoye claiming she had an interview with the American Emberssy.’ But I’m trying to be positive by saying that the message of this movie is that too much attachment to trivial things is bad. It's a sad sad situation if this is how it actually is. What else? Not all the acting was horrible. Apollonia, Tonto, the girl who played Kim and I guess Muna and Oge were not that bad compared to others in the movie, fone and tongue biting aside. The girl that played Nicole, her own fone entered a whole other level; it became irritating to listen to her talk after a while. She’s also living proof that jealousy is the ugliest trait.
Cons:
There were a lot of things wrong with these movies that were annoying mostly because you could clearly see how they could have been done differently. Scenes that could have been condensed, side stories that should have ended in part 1 and characters who could have been scrapped. The whole idea of fraud they introduced with Muna and Oge and eventually Tonto kind of makes sense to the whole story although I still don’t understand what they were transferring from people’s phones or how none of the people figured out who it was. They mentioned every social networking site, even the ones that people don't use anymore and parts of the movie read like an ad with the characters spelling out all the uses of their phones. The movie was redundant; most of the wardrobe was just something else, the dialogue was cheesy and the ending was rushed and predictable. None of the "bad" characters redeemed themselves at the end, just a lot of humiliation and had I knowns.
So to conclude this long ass post, this is one of those watch at your own risk kind of movies. Depending on who you watch it with and how good they are at commentary, you will either be very amused or very irritated. This, I know, is a movie I cannot go out of my way to watch twice.
Blackberry Babes part 1 (via youtube):
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