‘Truth or Dare’ (R)

How much Madonna are you ready for? How much can you take? In "Truth or Dare," the Material Girl lets it all hang out. She ringmasters her way through concerts, offstage antics and dressing-room banter culled from last year's six-month-long Blond Ambition tour. It's an exhaustive, and exhilarating, document of an overwhelming lifestyle.

If that's not enough for you, check immediately into the nearest celebrity-obsession clinic.

You may find yourself in the bed next to Madonna's. Pop music's answer to Andy Warhol is her own biggest fan. Blissfully lost in her own legend, she's eternally Madonna. That means running her lithe entourage like a girlish queen for a day, informing uptight Canadian cops her work is art, idly wondering which celebrity she hasn't met yet or gyrating onstage before adoring thousands.

She's a beguiling mixture of self-parody and self-adulation. She's a gas and a narcissist. She's got a helluva mouth on her. She's not just the star of her own docu-donna, she's the mother planet. You'd better love her or leave her.

Sitting backstage in front of a mirror, she says, "Let Mama get her makeup done."

"Truth" dares everything, critical harping be damned. Her onstage shows, full of muscular male dancers, lavish sets, risque costumes and fabulous choreography, are triumphs of style over substance. Backstage, nothing is sacred and little is covered. Madonna's breasts see the light more than once. One of her dancers is told to unzip himself -- although not in those words. He complies. No wonder boyfriend Warren Beatty keeps trying to hide.

"Warren," teases Madonna, "where are you?"

Actually, Beatty (now her ex-boyfriend) makes the most telling comment. "She doesn't want to live off-camera," he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

With director Alek Keshishian's countless cameras trailing every move (he shot 250 hours in all), where does Madonna-faux end and Madonna-real begin? Is there a real Madonna? Who would visit her mother's grave (for the first time since childhood) swathed in black chic and crucifix with a camera crew and limo in tow? Madonna.

A real-life intrusion comes in the form of a former strip dancer and substance abuser who was Madonna's childhood friend and idol. She asks Madonna if she remembers a letter she sent five years ago, asking the pop singer to be godmother to her daughter. Madonna claims to have received it after the fact. When the mother asks her to be a godmother for her next child, Madonna hems and haws. She's flattered, she says, but she needs time to think about it. You know it ain't gonna happen.

Or maybe the real Madonna is the one who flounces into a Chanel store in Manhattan and says, "Shopping can really cheer a girl up."

Perhaps, in this video-conscious world, questions like these don't matter. "Truth" merely asks you to celebrate an effervescent personality clearly at home surrounded by frolicsome sycophants or perched in her dressing room, cameras whirring. At one point, Kevin Costner comes backstage to tell Madonna how "neat" her show was. She makes a gagging gesture with her finger as soon as he's left. When Canadian authorities threaten to arrest her for simulating masturbation on stage, she holds the hands of her backup performers and starts a prayer with "This is our last night in Toronto. The fascist state of Toronto . . ."

She's enjoying the danger, because real life can never harm her.