Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

First off, My reviews do not go into detail about the movie or what the story is, etc. My reviews are based off of the movie goers thoughts/opinions after seeing the movie. If you want to know what the movie is about, read the synopsis. This is a true opinion review for those who are debating whether or not this movie is for them.This movie is absolutely ridiculous. It is truly one of the dumbest, most horribly written movies I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. There are quite a few masterpieces by Spike Lee, but believe me, this ain't one of em. For this movies to have as high of a rating as it does (6.5), there has got to be some sort of biased opinions being given. Skip this. (2/10)

Bamboozled (2000): Dir: Spike Lee / Cast: Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett, Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, Michael Rapaport: Satiric view into racism and entertainment. Title represents the manipulation of this image into the minds of society. Damon Wayans plays a creative consultant at a T.V station. His boss claims to b e black because he married a black woman. He approaches Wayans about creating a program of racial controversy for ratings. Wayans scouts about and eventually turns two black street performers into characters named Man-Tan and sleep 'n' Eat for a program called The Alabama Porch Monkeys, which is both a media sensation and a controversy. Director Spike Lee highlights with images from black T.V. programs. To his previous credit are Malcolm X and Summer of Sam. Wayans creates an individual who is tired of media manipulation yet pulled by its corruption to the point where he is staring at consequences. Jada Pinkett-Smith is his voice of reason until her brother is killed due to controversy stemmed from the show. Now her sense of loyalty is altered in favor of self served justice. Michael Rapaport brings much humour as the enthusiastic forceful boss. Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson play the exploited entertainers forced to wear blackface. Their destinies prove different in this well-crafted look at racism, media and one's soul. Score: 10 / 10

The film itself, like the show it portrays, is a satire. This is an important point that the below reviewer seemed to miss.One should understand that many characters (socialist rappers, Harvard sell-out, white dudes dying to be black) are themselves caricatures and stereotypes. The reason why, for example, Wayans' acting is so forced and corny is because Spike seeks to mock the idea of someone who overhauls his personality to fit in with the "mainstream" (or whatever) world. He overacts because he plays a character who is himself acting. From a comic standpoint, these characters succeed. Which, again, is a satiric device.Excellent soundtrack.

"Bamboozled" tells the story of Pierre Delacroix, a desperate African-American writer (played by Damon Wayans) that needs to create a different show to his white boss (Michael Rapaport) in order to raise the low network's ratings. His idea: a minstrel show where black actors paint their faces even blacker (remembering the times when white actors painted their faces to portray black characters because African-Americans were forbidden to act). The boss likes the idea, but Pierre's assistant, Sloan (played by Jada Pinkett-Smith in a good performance) thinks that this is not a good idea, claiming that the audiences would react badly, but she follows his project and they hire two street artist dancers to the show. They change their names to Mantan (Savion Glover) and Sleep 'n Eat (Tommy Davidson). Both of them disagree with some aspects of the show, which contains many unfortunate references to African-Americans, but they stay in the project because they're homeless and they have no money. Like Mantan says: "If I can dance and make some money that's OK!"And the show who had everything against it turns out to be a enormous success making Pierre a influential person in the TV business. But like Tom Petty used to sing, what goes up must comes down and that eventually happened when people starts to complain about the racist and not funny show. One of these people is Sloan's brother (played by Mos Def) leader of an rap group that feels that something must be done to end with the show. In the middle of all this mess are the crisis of conscience of all the characters brought to this controversial matter. Are they doing it only for the money? Self-respect worths nothing? These are some of the questions that this movie shows us. The good aspect of the movie is that Lee puts humor in situations that in real life could be very embarrassing, such as the first meeting between the dancers and the boss, when he says to one of them to dance over the table, while he laughs hysterically, or when he adds ideas to the show, considering himself to be more black than Pierre. But, on the other hand, Lee was ambiguous in saying to the viewers if the minstrel show was intended to be funny or not. When the show was showed in the first time I wasn't laughing at all, thinking that was a strange and almost pointless moment, but then I thought maybe that's the idea, racial stereotypes are only funny if you're at the other side of the audience just like the extras who were applauding to every joke. But to us viewers we're not supposed to laugh because it's not funny, it was just a way to tell that many times TV executives and writers fails to show what's funny and what's not. Many people complained about Damon Wayans french accent saying that it wasn't funny, that it was annoying, but I say that's not true, in fact, this is was a Lee's statement that really works in the movie, because Pierre was an Harvard graduated, so he wanted to pass this "white image" to his network bosses. A satire as he explained in the beginning period. The first thing that comes to the mind of many viewers of this movie is the countless references to Sidney Lumet's "Network" (specially in the notable Mantan's protest scene) showing the media power over his spectators, how producers and writers get their ideas to create a show that be appealing to all audiences many times using themes politically incorrect to guarantee high TV ratings. The main difference between "Network" and Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" is the way both stories are presented; this time we had lots of black humor and numerous real life references that wasn't showed in Lumet's work. I'm not saying that this movie is a better work than "Network", but it's a bold story that puts it very close to the greatness of many controversial movies on the subject. Spike Lee enters this decade with another great movie, but lacks the rage protest of the wonderful "Do The Right Thing" and don't have many good performances like "Malcolm X" had. 10/10