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It's funny to think that after the CW's full run of Riverdale (with all its murders, serial killers, time travel, magic, and whatever other crap that series got up to as it became increasingly weird and detached from reality) that anyone would be shocked or surprised about an adaptation of an Archie Comics property. But you have to reflect back to the late 1990s to understand where that property was at the time. Archie was wholesome then. It was the source of countless comics stretching back to the 1940s, and as much as the art style has updated over the years, much of the 1940s mentality hasn't left the comics. My sisters passed me a bunch of their comics in the 1980s and, even as a kid, I realized there was something off about the comics. Something... wholesome. Too wholesome.

That wholesomeness has pervaded so many of the adaptations of the comics over the years. There was the band, The Archies, who had the big hit "Sugar Sugar" (among many other songs they released), which is treacly sweet in the way 1960s pop could be. There were all the Hanna-Barbera animated adaptations aimed squarely at kids. There was the Melissa Joan Hart-starring Sabrina the Teenage Witch show from ABC's TGIF block in the 1990s, and even that felt safe and wholesome. Archie Comics were safe media for the whole family.

Of course, that's changed more recently, not just with Riverdale. There were the undead horror side-stories, such as Afterlife with Archie and Vampironica, the crossover with The Predator, and the NetflixOriginally started as a disc-by-mail service, Netflix has grown to be one of the largest media companies in the world (and one of the most valued internet companies as well). With a constant slate of new internet streaming-based programming that updates all the time, Netflix has redefined what it means to watch TV and films (as well as how to do it). The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (which itself was based on another Archie Comics-publish horror title). But one could make a solid argument that all of those titles were tapping into the same need to subvert expectations for the brand that was kicked off by Josie and the Pussycats, a light-hearted film with far more raunch to it than you'd expect from the wholesome brand.

The film makes its play early to let you know, "this isn't the film you were expecting." It opens with the introduction of Du Jour, a boy band comprised of D.J (Donald Faison), Travis (Seth Green), Marco (Breckin Meyer), and Les (Alexander Martin), and the band is hot, having just released their massively successful hit song, "Backdoor Lover". Yes, the film opens with a (maybe not so subtle) song about anal sex. Trust us when we say the film is very happy to take these kinds of hilarious pot-shots at pop music through the rest of the film (also, if you have the DVD, go watch the music video for "Backdoor Lover" as it is a masterpiece in its own right).

Du Jour is the number one music act in the world, and they could have pretty much whatever they want. On a plane ride to their next tour stop, though, the band reveals to their label rep, Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming), that they discovered a secret track in their music, something odd that they only detected when they went into the studio to do their own remix. Wyatt gets all weird after the reveal, and then steps into the cockpit for a second while the boys discuss. Then he, and the pilot, eject out of the plane, leaving the Du Jour boys to watch as their plane goes down.

What the Du Jour boys discovered, as it's quickly revealed, was a subliminal marketing track used to target the "youth". Wyatt is part of a massive conspiracy and he will do anything to protect the work being done. Sadly, with the (presumed) death of Du Jour, he needs a new band to promote. Thankfully, having parachuted into Riverdale, it won't take Wyatt long to find a new band to promote. Enter the Pussycats: lead singer and guitarist Josie McCoy (Rachael Leigh Cook), drummer Melody Valentine (Tara Reid), and bassist Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson). Suddenly this band of down-to-earth performers gets swept up in the MegaRecords machine, and they'll have to fight to keep control of their music, and their friendship, before the machinations of the conspiracy grind them up and spit them out.

If you haven't seen Josie and the Pussycats trust me when I say that the film isn't going to be what you expect. It is at times a bit of a raunchy comedy, with jokes like "Backdoor Lover" or a character holding up a sign that says "honk if you love pussycats" with the "cats" part accidentally covered. But it's really target isn't teen sex comedies (even as it goes for fun laughs along those lines); it's real goal is to act as a scathing, parodic take down of the music industry and commoditization and selling out of musical acts. It's a film that really wants to skewer a whole industry, top to bottom, and it doesn't ever let up in that regard.

It's most obvious, and most hilarious gag is the product placement. By becoming a big label pop act you, in essence, have to sell out. You make endorsement deals, you sell your soul piece by piece. The film mocks this ruthlessly with all its brand placements, large and small. Not a single scene goes by without a corporate logo, brand, jingle, billboard, or more. The Target logo is festooned everywhere, from bedsheets to shower curtains, and even little Target bullseye stuffed dogs are perch around the sets. None of this corporate branding was paid for, mind you; it was all placed by the production staff to create a heightened reality where everything is sponsored and commodified. The film is so overt with its brand logos that is becomes a meta-meta-meta joke all on its own.

At the same time, though, the film has a lot of fun watching its three lead characters go from rags to riches in this odd world that's been crafted. They're down-home girls suddenly swept up in the corporate machine, and the fact that they don't think anything is weird about the world they're in speaks to how in over their heads they really are. "Is it weird that all of this happened in a week," Josie remarks once they have the number one single in the world, and while they brush it off because their fame is amazing, it's also funny to think how quick their journey was. Rags to riches in under a week is stupid... but also not entirely untrue.

Back during the heydays of the boy bands and pop starlets (the Backstreet Boys and Brittany Spears clones) it seemed like some new act was molded and churned out every week, and they all went on to have massive, number one hits. It all sounded the same, it was all a commodity to sell to the teens of the era, and they bought it. And then, in the process, shows like Total Request Live came along and not only sold that music, but a bunch of other brands in the process. MTV was a corporate tool to tap into the youths, as it were, and this movie hits that vibe perfect, lampooning it all to perfection.

With that said, the film works as well as it does because of its cast. The standouts are Cook and Dawson, who have such easy chemistry together that you absolutely believe their friendship from the moment they're introduced. Of course, Rosario Dawson brings her magnetic personality to everything she's in, and she steals all her scenes, but we can't undersell the comedic performance of Rachel Lee Cook either. There are plenty of scenes (like an early interaction with love interest Alan M, played by Gabriel Mann) where her reactions sell every comedic moment. These two really carry this film and make it a joy to watch.

The rest of the cast is good, if limited. Tara Reid is not a strong performer, which is why after this film she steadily fell into worse and worse films, such as The Crow: Wicked Prayer, or bit parts in larger films, all before descending in the Sharknado series. Here's she fine as Melody, but the character -- a big old blond ditz -- doesn't really stretch her acting chops at all. Alan Cummings is deliciously silly as Wyatt, but the character is pretty one-note after his first few scenes, again not really pushing the actor. Meanwhile, Parker Posey is saddled with a terrible character, record company CEO Fiona, and while Posey has fun in the role the character, as written, is obnoxious.

But the film is enjoyable. It's light and funny (very funny), with a lot of catchy music -- not just "Backdoor Lover" and "Du Jour Around the World" but also Pussycats singles "3 Small Words" and "Spin Around" are real standouts. It hits all the right vibes and, despite the era it was made for and the genre it was skewering, still feels pretty ageless (a random reference to TRL or MTV News notwithstanding). This is a great comedy to just sit back and enjoy while the jokes fly and the music roars. It may not be the Josie adaptation people expected (which could be one of the many reasons it initially bombed before becoming a cult classic) but it absolutely presaged where Archie would go as the brand matured and learned to let go of that perfect, wholesome attitude.