Britney Spears's Pole Dancing Video: Bada-Bomb With Critics

Britney Spears is not doing well with judges lately.

The custody-battling pop star is now getting pounded in the court of public opinion for her new pole dancing video for the single “Gimme More” off her upcoming album, Blackout, to be released Nov. 13.

“Our analysis: Looks like it was shot in one take on the cheap and then gussied up with a bit of cutting and camera work,” grumbles Rolling Stone on its Web site. “There’s no real choreography (just a bit of dancing near a pole) and all the smoke and mirrors – literally and figuratively – made us nauseous.”

Entertainment Weekly complained: “I’ve seen sexier pole work during an afternoon of fly-fishing.”

And Stereogum.com says that this Tale of Two Britneys “hurts like the Dickens.”

For Spears, the good news is that the video is considered a step up from her disappointing performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

“It looked a little more energetic than the VMA performance and she didn’t look as scared or as freaked out,” says JJ Kincaid, afternoon DJ at Z100 in New York. “But we just expect so much more and it’s like, ‘Oh, girl. Please just do something different. Come on.'”

The single still continues to do well – it’s one of the Top 5 requested songs on Z100 – and not everybody was left as cold by the video, though the compliments continue to come backhanded.

“She dances much better than she did at the VMAs,” says one user who posted the link on Digg.com, “and she actually looks good.”

• Reporting by AARON PARSLEY and KRISTIN BOEHM

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