VANNA WHITE IS THE GODDESS OF LOVE

1988 rating: ***

Well you can't get any worse than this. Then again, you can't get any better than this any worse. Make sense?

Oh well, either does a TV movie centering on Venus, the goddess of Love, banished from the clouds and sent to Earth and, after a Venus statue's been stolen by two goofy thieves, it comes to life after hairdresser David Naughton unwittingly puts his wedding ring on the stone finger.

The impending ceremony to Amanda Beasley might provide difficult... Naughton's got Venus for eternity, and she won't let him go.

Vanna White, the WHEEL OF FORTUNE blonde playing the title role, can't act very well; but perhaps she speaks in a deliberate monotone because she's not of this world (obviously intended as a handicap). Bad movie fans might want to see this just for the banal attempt to make White a movie star. Although halfway through, her performance actually starts improving – perhaps Naughton, who was brilliant in AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, rubbed off on her a bit.

The best scenes involve the main characters at odds with each other and/or Venus adapting to civilization. But things gets clumsy when the thieves, and the local police, move in: making an actual plot (or resolution thereof) seem completely unnecessary.