We start out with
Timbaland on a stage somewhere, standing in front of a giant clock display. The
clock is supposedly showing us the four minutes that we’ve got left to save the
world from… well, it’s never made clear, but it actually appears to be showing
us four hours. Unless we’re counting
the milliseconds? Why would we count those? Those things only matter in Tom
Cruise movies where he has to push an important button right now or Manhattan will be turned into a decaying wasteland,
just like the Republican National Convention.
Odd clock aside,
Timbaland is currently invested in making some interesting noises that go along
with the ominous opening notes of the song. But more importantly, we get our
first images of this creepy triangle-based mass that appears to be eating parts
of the set around him. Timbaland doesn’t seem to care, since he’s got the music
in him and that’s all that’s important, but we get a close-up of a dusty
speaker component that is trembling in fear because he’s further down on the
cast list and will probably be the first casualty. (Maybe he should have had a
better agent.)
Brief montage of
some gears spinning and cocktails on the verge of being spilled. No idea.
First image of
Madonna, wearing some form-fitting night-night clothes and facing away from us.
(I guess we should have purchased the higher-priced concert tickets if we
wanted to see more.) Then Justin debuts, again not facing us, wearing basically
the same outfit that he has worn since moving on from the Mickey Mouse Club.
Interspersed with all the introductions are shots of Timbaland still enjoying
the noises that his mouth can make, then we cut to a fancy car rolling towards
somewhere.
Oh look, the car
is being pushed by Madonna, now wearing a black outfit that involves parachute
pants and a matching puffy blouse that practically scream “1984”. But we can
forgive the debatable fashion choice, because you really shouldn’t question
couture decisions made by a woman who has thighs capable of repositioning
vehicles. (I guess it really does pay off to have a personal trainer who will
holler in German and force you to do enough leg lifts that you could raise the
Titanic.)
Okay, I guess
Madonna loses interest in impressing us with the number of squat thrusts that
she’s apparently done in her day, so she sexily slides off the front of the car
onto… a dinner table where a random and sad-looking family is eating leftovers.
The family pays no attention to what is actually happening in the real world
(do they watch Fox News?), slurping their soup and ignoring the woman on their table
who already has more secrets in her parachute pants than they will ever have in
their lives.
Meanwhile, we
keep getting quick glimpses of the Triangle Monster munching on everything in
its path and not caring what it swallows. I could make a Rush Limbaugh
reference, but that would be too easy.
Madonna marches
away from that set where all the lonely people are, and launches into her part
of the song. This requires her to wander through a loft apartment where a young
couple is preparing for a bath and kissing one another. (No idea, part two.)
Cut to Justin in the same apartment, singing to himself in a dirty mirror and
admiring his nifty neck-scarf that one would normally wear in an artsy movie
where British people talk about nothing and wait for redemption that never
comes.
Cut back to the
kissing couple who apparently don’t mind having international superstars show
up at unexpected times, and we can see that part of their flesh is missing as
they smooch, showing bone and such. This is possibly the least erotic thing I
have ever seen, and I’ve been to some very questionable websites. Then we’re back
with Madonna somewhere else in the apartment. (Is she in the couple’s bedroom?
Not clear, but it’s definitely not a place where she or her staff would ever
sleep.)
Madonna rips off
her puffy parachute jacket (my prayers worked!) and possibly straddles the bed,
but then we cut to the kissing couple again and they are missing more flesh, so
we are now basically watching two of those life-size dissected-body models from
high-school biology class sucking face.
With tongues involved. Ugh. This is a world I would not want to save, I
don’t care how many minutes we have.
Then Madonna and
Justin meet up and hover around the bed where the Skeletors are procreating,
and just as quickly hop out some convenient windows that are nearby. Outside,
they find a bunch of cars parked in a haphazard manner, with two guys wearing
red plastic doing street moves on top of one of them. This is an additional
sign of the apocalypse, so our stars should just keep running, but they don’t.
Justin has to get something important out of the trunk of the car where the
jacked-up Oompa Loompas are gyrating. (Is it his recording contract? Yeah,
probably should grab that.)
Madonna, on an
agenda of her own, as she always is, decides that she needs to jump in and out
of some of the cars in a sexy but unclear manner. Not to be outdone, Justin
decides to run across the top of the cars using the same mysterious motivation.
They manage to meet up in the front seat of one of the cars, where Madonna
briefly flirts with Justin, whispering in his ear and either hinting at a future
hook-up or promising that she will one
day make a movie that doesn’t require serious editing before it can be
released.
The frolicking
with the cars continues for some time, with both of them proving athletic
prowess and the ability to strike poses right on the beat, but without anyone
explaining the critical bit about what needs to be done to save the world or at
least make the two dudes stop dancing on the one car. Those guys really need to
find a better purpose in life, because they are just a few online votes away
from surpassing The Skeletors as Most Invaluable Players.
Hold up, now
Madonna and Justin have made their way (via modern technology) to a supermarket
of some kind. We have an extended scene with the two of them alternately
flirting with or threatening the various products lining the shelves of the
aisles, nuzzling up to the granola and slapping the canned tuna. They
eventually reach the front of the store, where each of them jumps on a conveyor
belt at the checkout counters so they can dance while essentially running on a
treadmill. (Is it always about
physical competitions with Madonna? Honey, can’t you prove your supremacy with
a non-strenuous card game or maybe a nice round of Jeopardy?)
Happily, they
both give up with whatever they were trying to accomplish in the checkout lanes
at Wal-Mart, and they both suddenly appear on that stage with the clock that I
don’t understand. (Timbaland is gone, so he’s probably off at yet another
awards show.) Madonna is back in her naughty night-night ensemble, and Justin
is back in the outfit that he’s never changed since Mickey.) They are both
breaking out some serious dance moves here, but it seems a bit odd that they
are rarely in the same shot. Do I smell a contractual clause of some kind? (“I
want 36 flavors of vodka in my dressing room, 24 varieties of massage
therapists, and only 12 moments when I am in the same room as my co-star.”)
We have some
quick scenes here and there of someone wearing aggressive high-heels and
stomping around an office environment. We’ll just assume it’s not Justin. Not
that there’s anything wrong with that if it’s really him.
Wait, now Madonna
has just stormed into a public bathroom. She’s back in part of her black
outfit, so I’m not sure where this fits in the space-time continuum. And now
she’s looking in the mirror and Justin is staring back at her. They do some
mess where it appears that they exchange clothing but they really don’t, with
each of them throwing the unwanted garments off toward the less-popular toilet
stalls. Then they tromp out of the restroom without even bothering to leave a
tip for the attendant who is probably hiding in a corner, weeping and wishing
that s/he had paid attention to their mother
when she proclaimed “do your homework or you’ll have to listen to people
pee for the rest of your life.”
Okay, NOW we have
Madonna and Justin on the same stage at the same time, and they seem to be
involved in yet another dance-off. Justin is very good with his street poses
and arm-flipping, but he’s up against Madonna, who was already artfully
thrusting her crotch when Justin was still trying to figure out which end of
his baby bottle offered the most promise. Still, they’re both very
energetic and each manages to hold their
own, despite Justin’s insistence that he keep wearing that scarf from the
British play where nothing actually happens.
As we roll to a
close, Madge and Just-In start ripping parts of their couture off of each
other. In most diva camps, this would result in a drive-by shooting, but they
both handle the ripping and flinging in a professional manner. Then Timbaland
arrives back from his awards show just long enough to holla “breakdown” on the
soundtrack, which sends M and J into overdrive.
They amp up the dance moves, trying once again to prove who has the most
flexible whatever while Timbaland makes noises off to the side. The “oh yeah, we almost forgot about that” Triangle Monster arrives onset and
starts chewing the scenery, as well as our illustrious co-stars, causing flesh
to disappear without leaving a forwarding address.
Our last image is
of Justin, with an exposed rib cage, leaning in to kiss Madonna, who has an
exposed jaw. Just like Romeo and Juliet. Only completely not…
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