FELINES - NOTHING MORE THAN FELINES.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

``Josie and the Pussycats'' is a one-joke satire, and relentlessly committed to it at that. But since the gag is about the mass marketing of drecky pop culture, its brainless, wallpaper quality seems more like an astute assessment of today's commercial teen scene than a failure to imaginatively flesh out.

It's light, funny and snide from start to finish; live-action cartoons have done worse.

Based on the Archie Comics series and its spinoff, a Saturday morning tune toon of the 1970s, the film keeps the basics while updating the setting to the Britney/boy band present. The music is right out of the '80s pop punk sound of The Go-Gos and Bangles.

Three small-town girls - auburn-tressed singer-guitarist Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook), tragically permed bassist Val (Rosario Dawson) and bubble-brained blond drummer Melody (Tara Reid) - dig their little three-chord, tail and leopard ears-wearing combo the most. Most everyone else thinks they're idiots, though. They can barely get a gig at the local bowling alley.

Luckily for the Pussycats, or maybe not, the plane carrying the hot new boy band Dujour goes down nearby. Their manager Wyatt (``Spy Kids' '' Alan Cumming, in his second effete villain role of the season), who has mysteriously escaped the crash unscathed, needs a new act, quick, for a big nationwide concert broadcast. One look at the felines and he puts them on the fast track to media stardom, while Josie wonders out loud when he's actually going to listen to them play.

Soon the girls are the toast of New York and being manipulated by Wyatt's trendoid, record company boss, Fiona (Parker Posey). Once again Posey proves that maybe all of those indie movies she was in were witty and we just thought she was by association.

Facing all the strains on their longtime friendship that comes with overnight divahood, Val and Josie, the two sentient ones, somehow know that they're being nefariously used, but are too ambitious to really see how.

Meanwhile, clueless Melody finds herself targeted for assassination - by MTV's ``Total Request Live'' host Carson Daly. He gamely makes fun of his teen tastemaking status as well as his real-life engagement to actress Reid.

It takes the whole movie for the Pussycats to realize that pop music is and always has been a secret government conspiracy to implant subliminal messages in the minds of impressionable young people to make them buy faddish junk. Thus it's kept the American economy viable for the last half-century. It's as good an explanation as any for the cyclical popularity of Abercrombie & Fitch, Billy Joel or Pauly Shore, especially when the masked voice of robber capitalism belongs, as I've always suspected, to Mr. MovieFone.

None of this constitutes much of a plot. The girls basically run around, squeal and frolic through cheesy montages and what could very well be a record number of brazen product placements (which is part of the joke, I think). Some of this short-attention-span cinematic shortcutting is redeemed by an infectious giddiness that evokes pleasant memories of The Beatles' ``A Hard Day's Night'' or, less pleasantly, The Monkees' ``Head.''

The clever, catchy songs were produced by the estimable Kenneth ``Babyface'' Edmonds (who makes some funny cameo appearances under heavy makeup). Josie's singing voice is supplied by Letters to Cleo's Kay Hanley. The likes of Counting Crow Adam Duritz and Go-Go Jane Wiedlin performed songwriting chores, as did the movie's writer-directors, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan.

``Josie'' marks a notable improvement over that duo's first film, the teen party comedy ``Can't Hardly Wait.'' They're in enough of a postmodern loop to acknowledge it: One of the subliminal messages is `` `Can't Hardly Wait' was underrated.'' In fact, that's true; whatever its faults, that movie captured a certain breathless excitement over nothing that is part and parcel of the adolescent experience.

``Josie'' nails the same feeling even better and, in its one nod to realism, commodifies and commercializes it for your enhanced enjoyment.

``JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS''

(Rated PG-13: language, mild violence)

The stars: Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, Rosario Dawson, Alan Cumming, Parker Posey.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, based on the Archie Comics characters. Produced by Marc Platt, Tracey Edmonds, Chuck Grimes and Tony DeRosa-Grund. Released by Universal Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 33 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Three stars

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Photo:

Rocking out on stage are the Pussycats: Rosario Dawson, left, Tara Reid (on drums) and Rachael Leigh Cook.