Our intrepid reviewer wanted to like this video. But after three minutes of nihilistic pole dancing, she is left despairing for humanity

It's not easy making a comeback after a long time out of the charts. Presently, it's not easy being Britney. Then again, it's not easy being green, either. And it's sometimes hard to be a woman. All in all, there is a lot to contend with. And so, we enter the difficult comeback video of Her Spearsness in a pensive mood.

Our mood is unlike that of Brits then, as she looks really terribly jolly about it all - and every inch the clean-cut, healthy vision of her younger self. We are dazzled by a 4000-watt smile as a blonde Britnavision welcomes us, preparing to hit us, baby, one more time, with the memory of all that was poppishly perfect about her. Well good on you, B. This is a good comeback plan!

Having several dozen dirty glasses piled up in front of you, though, is perhaps not such a great comeback plan. Perhaps, they are symbolic of all the heavy nights we know she's had of late, and the fact that those are all finished, over with now, as she has returned to a clean middle-American pop-princess sobriety. Very clever. Good thinking.

Continuing the theme of introspection, Brit turns her attention to a picture of another Britney. Britney in a hat. Britney in a hat is lurking in some shadows and seems to be stockpiling bottles of spirits. Perhaps this is the Britney that Brit wishes to leave behind. Evil Britney in a hat. Evil Britney stands up and starts weaving her way across the room. To come face-to-face with the Angelic Britney of old, perhaps?

Ah no. To come face-to-pole with, well, a pole. Chaplin hat stuck solidly on her broody head, Evil Britney sports a slick of brown hair stuck rigidly across her kisser, like a long evil false moustache stuck on squiffy and pathetically uncurled. Damn fake hair.

Britney starts pole dancing.

In an odd little outfit: some big butch tattoos, a waistcoat with what looks like a giant sequined lobster in an evening dress on the breast, a bowler hat, and some little pinstripe almost-shorts. Like Liza Minnelli with all the water sucked out. Or a city worker in a cheap suit who's been put through a very hot wash. Perhaps this is a metaphor for Brit's dissatisfaction with The Business. Or perhaps with her management, or ... I have no idea.

She's pole dancing.

With her new hair now loose, she tries to answer some of her Video Music Awards critics by hiding behind the pole as proof of her thinness. It does not work, as we can still see her. It is only a pole, after all.

And we watch her as she goes on, in dogged pursuit of the perfect comeback. The perfect comeback through pole dancing.

Ooh, that's not a good look. Perhaps this is Britney saying "Come on, you all loved it when I shed my clean image and turned into sex-Britney in the video for Oops, I Did It Again with the latex and the suggestive imagery and all that jazz? Well, I am doing the same thing! You like it?"

(And saying that through the medium of pole dancing.)

No, Brit. You can't keep heading in the SAME direction and expect to surprise people. You keep heading off that direction every time you want to make an impression and eventually you'll fall off the edge of "a bit naughty" and have your eye out with a dildo.

Britney has been joined by some pole-dancing friends. Now they are ALL pole dancing.

The camera work is jittery, low quality, and keeps being infused with tinges of colour - blue, green, red. It's approximately the same quality of work you might see on an advert at 3am on ITV4 with a booming voiceover suggesting that you call NOW to chat to hot single babes in YOUR local area!

Perhaps that's what she's going for. Perhaps it's a shrouded satirical comment on the manufactured availability of a certain stereotype of sexualised femininity in modern society.

Or perhaps she just likes grinding against mirrors. It's either/or, really. Could be both. Whatever it is, it's all done with a clean-cut yet terrifyingly manic Brit-eating grin.

It's like she wants to reassure everyone that she's the same all-American Mickey Mouse Club kid she always was. She just happens to have her baps out and spend her free time grinding against poles...

...or watching herself grinding against poles.

There's a slightly odd thing about this video. Though it's ostensibly a pole-dancing club, we only really see one man in the video, and then only for a couple of short shots. The rest of the video concentrates on Britney's girl's night out, enjoying the spectacle of Britney's angelic/sleazy pole-dancing troupe. Which is fine, but ...

Oh whatever. I give up. Here's Britney's arse.

And then, suddenly, the camera flips around and we see that this whole thing has been taking place in the back room of a fast food joint! The whole thing is ACTUALLY a brilliantly biting satire of consumerism, fast food and sexual appetites and ...

No, it's no good. I'm lying. Nothing changes. It all stays the same.

And there's some more pole dancing.

And that's it. I honestly sat here watching it over and over, racking my brain, burning my imagination at both ends, trying to find something salvageable, something positive and lovable and redeeming about this video for what is, after all, not THAT bad a pop song. I wanted to be a dissenting positive voice, not just another jabberer against a beleaguered, vulnerable young woman... but I just can't. She had full editorial control of this video. Let's just start again.

Hello! It's Britney's new video!

What a lot of arse!

"Gimme more"? Seriously, the only way she's going to give us more right now is if she disembowels herself live on film.

THE END

You can watch it here. You may have to sign in and confirm your age. This doesn't seem to be because of the presence of any rude bits. Probably more so that you can confirm that you're big enough and tough enough to handle the resultant soul-crushing disappointment, slight taste of sick-burp and loss of will to live.

Thanks. Next week: something good!