Very well executed

An absolute waste of money

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

his universe, his basic ingredients. a fairy tale who becomes in his hand a manifesto. about love, about gestures, about sense of life and force of relationship. nothing new at the first sigh. Victoria Abril in same kind of role of the powerful/seductive woman who impose the order to a complicated/ fragile universe, Peter Coyote as the best choice for Nicholas, Alex Casanovas as a kind of victim who needs the woman's support. adventures, sexuality and cruelty, secrets and strange end are the old solutions for a not comfortable film in the case of Almodovar. but Kika has something different. a strange poetry of scenes, the science of Veronica Forque to give precise nuances to her character in inspired manner.

There is no director whose films embody the strange spirit of the new wave movement of the 60s like Pedro Almadovar. His weird, disjointed and patently bizarre works are a breath of fresh air given that we live with movies that come out of a Hollywood that prefers that directors just bow their heads and do as they are told. His most striking works came before his notoriety with the overrated 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown'. Before that he fleshed out such singular masterpieces as 'Law of Desire' and 'What Have I Done to Deserve This?'. No film since 'Women' (until the recent 'All About My Mother') has captured his pre-fame brilliance and during that dry spell came one of the worst, a little disappointment named 'Kika'.The main topic of discussion given to 'Kika' has been it's politically incorrect rape scene played here for laughs but comes off as ridiculous and uncomfortable. But seething around that scene is Almadovar's target - the rape given by the media into the private lives of anyone who ever takes their clothes off. The villain of the piece is a tabloid journalist named Andrea Scarface who runs a hot TV show called 'Today's Worst' and buzzes around on a motorcycle with a camera mounted on her helmet hoping to catch crimes as they happen.Andrea's former lover is now seeing the title character, a shapely cosmetologist with a big mouth named Kika whose personality is infectious but (I believe) would have been better served in a different movie.Kika is currently being lusted after by her lesbian maid (Almadovar regular Rossy de Palma) and the maid has a chauvinistic brother who is not only an ex-porn star but who's first day out of jail leads to aforementioned rape scene. Also attached to the story is an expatriate writer (Peter Coyote) whose wife's murder remains a mystery and has driven him nearly comatose.'Kika' feels like a first draft, there is little interest in the underwritten characters and most of the outrageous scenes exist, not for laughs but just for the sake of being outrageous. It lays a lot of characters on the canvas but can't find a use for them outside of their introductory status. This is a minor effort in which the biggest joke is really on the viewer.

In his obvious effort to "keep pushing the envelope," filmmaker Pedro Almodovar forgot how to concoct a coherent story with characters you care about. He has neither in here. Maybe he just doesn't care. Maybe, after some early successes, he just wants to shock people.This Spaniard's films are consistently twisted. They aren't erotic; just just semi- porn stuff and just plain vulgar, this being a prime example His actors must feel the same. Has anyone noticed how many low-life films, in addition to this one, Peter Coyote has been in?His female co-star, Veronica Forque, plays an extremely annoying character who does nothing but yak on and on. What makes that even more difficult for the English-speaking audiences in the theater (or at home) is that the subtitles come on rapid-fire, giving you almost no chance to view the visuals. This is entertainment? Hardly. As one reviewer put: "garbage."

I am quite an easy person but some things I can't understand, the meaning of this movie for instance... Never been that much of an Almodovar-fan myself it was a very difficult task to watch one his most extravagant movies ever. Do I need to tell the story? Let's hope there is one as the viewer is in the company of some dumb girl called Kika who is looking for the love of her life and somewhere she can't decide between a father and son. To tell something very simple, Almodovar thinks it's better to mix that up with some stupid detectivestory, something psychological (a dumb performance from Veronica Forque who plays a sort of SF=inspired TVpresentator who is looking for freaks), something hilarious (if you can make rape like slapstick then Almodovar is your guy) and actors who are completely not at their place, Peter Coyote for instance. Come on, guys, this is just as dumb as a current Eddie Murphyfilm but it's only for the so called intelligent whatever that might be worth...