POPSCREEN: Justin Timberlake - "What Goes Around"

Justin’s new video for his third single, “What Goes Around...Comes Around (Interlude)” is a big, flashy spectacle, but it adds little to his credit as an actor, which seems to be the clip’s goal. The nine-and-a-half-minute video tells the ho-hum story of a lounge singer (Timberlake) who meets a sexy mama (guest star Scarlett Johansson, still in blonde bombshell mode). They go at it until she cheats on him with his BFF, played by JT’s Alpha Dog costar Shawn Hatosy.

Contrary to the song, the dialogue in the video will make your ears bleed. Written by Nick Cassavetes, the director of “The Notebook” and “Alpha Dog,” everyone’s lines seem straight out of a romance novel you find in the dollar bin, but it’s all in wholesome, pulp fun. Throughout, Johansson seems very conscious of the fame that got her this gig. Fueling the rumors of a made-in-tabloid-heaven romance, the two definitely have chemistry, but then again, what man wouldn’t with Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year?

After JT discovers Scarlett’s indiscretions, she runs to her vehicle and he follows in a sports car that no lounge singer could ever afford. The video’s million-dollar budget seems to have been spent on Johansson’s salary and the big car crash that kills her character. As the car flips into the air in slow motion, Justin croons, “You got what you deserved.” Ouch. There’s a lesson to be learned here: cheat on JT and you’ll die a horrible, fiery death.

—Christopher C. Baker