The Legend of Billie Jean

Although it's obviously a B picture, The Legend of Billie Jean has quite a lot going for it. The film doesn't get many points for finesse, but it has energy, good performances and more wit than you'd expect.

The film makers may have envisioned Billie Jean as some sort of free-spirited Joan of Arc, but spirit is just one of the many key ingredients missing from this jumbled teen-age fable, enough to try the patience of -- ahem -- a saint.

Teenagers, who may not have seen this picture's many hero/outlaw predecessors, might like its the pop soundtrack, better-than-average acting and modest punk attire. Everyone else is likely to find Billie Jean the very thing that becomes a legend least.

This movie seems to have been made on a very low budget and it shows. There are some talented people in it, including [Keith] Gordon, Dean Stockwell as his father and Peter Coyote as a sympathetic cop, but they seem wasted in this misbegotten mishmash.

If The Legend of Billie Jean is painfully short on sense, it's dreadfully long on style -- the kind of heavy-handed flashiness that's been used by every Flashdance ripoff of the last two years.

[It's] a story line that prizes morality lessons over logic or common sense. But the fairy tale atmosphere of this movie is perhaps its greatest charm.

The plot of this teen revenge fantasy may be hard to swallow, but the movie itself goes down easy, thanks in large part to the presence of stunning Helen Slater, who is totally credible as a young woman turned into an outlaw/heroine.

Director Matthew Robbins keeps the pace light, nonviolent, and more entertaining than a made-for-TV movie. The fashion show’s the action.

The Legend of Billie Jean comes complete with a stupid ending, but fortunately, the audience has been well prepared.

For a patently silly film, The Legend of Billie Jean is oddly endearing, a situation largely attributable to its star, Helen Slater.