Lil' Pimp

As the first feature length movie made entirely using flash animation, Lil' Pimp at the very least has a unique selling point. Still, test audiences booked for the exits, pushing the theatrical release back two years before it finally arrived in the straight to DVD dump. While not as brazenly awful as you might expect (how bad can any movie featuring both the voice of William Shatner and Ludacris really be?), Lil' Pimp is basically one of those annoying, forcibly irreverent internet flash movies that some dude you hate emails you, only extended by 80 minutes. The film centres on a young boy's involvement in his city's prostitution ring. After being rejected by his schoolyard peers, nine-year-old Junior — a syrupy kid with a jive talkin' pet rat (Ludacris) — finds a friend in a hooker named Sweet Chiffon (Lil' Kim). She takes him to the Playground (a seedy strip joint) where Junior is accepted by the local pimps and hos. In his quest to integrate himself into their lifestyle and keep his mother from finding out, a skeevy man named Nasty Midget (Danny Bonaduce!) dresses him like a girl and teaches him to "get out there and act like a slut." When the club is shut down and plans to "turn the Playground into the most exciting prostitution-based family fun park the world has ever known" are thwarted, Junior has to go to great lengths to save his ungovernable new friends from the fuzz. Truthfully, if you dig that storyline, as well as flat cartoons voiced by a motley crew of celebrities (with Carmen Electra, Jennifer Tilly, Bernie Mac, etc.), chances are you'll be entertained… if it's four a.m. and you can't find the remote. If not, proceed with caution. Plus: trailers. (Lions Gate)