Review: Lavigne starts 'Complicated'

(Entertainment Weekly) -- Avril Lavigne's not kidding about that title, ''Complicated.''

This likable, if flyweight, number, another example of the new corporate female ''rock'' (Fiona Apple with ''hard'' guitars and all the weird, rough edges filed down), gets off to a perkier start than most of its competition.

It's usually grating to hear attention-seeking celebrities (or up-and-comers) complain about friends and lovers not acting like themselves, as Lavigne does here, but we'll cut her some slack given she's still in her teen years. Too bad the song is bogged down by the wordiest chorus in recent memory.

The video, in which Lavigne is backed by boys who look like they yearn to be a blink-182 karaoke band, is, like Lavigne herself, the epitome of the blossoming anti-Britney movement.

EW Grade: B-