Bratz the Movie
Lionsgate, Avi Arad & Associates, Crystal Sky Pictures, MGA Entertainment, USA, 2007.
Bratz is a doll merchandise by MGA Entertainment. On film they have appeared in computer animations (never seen any of those) but with the success of the dolls the live action film was inevitable. Just wait for Monster High and Barbie live action films that are coming in 2016-2017!
Mexican girl Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos) lives with her guardian Bubbie (Lainie Kazan), annoying little brother Manny (William May) and a Mariachi band because why not. Black girl Sasha's (Logan Browning) parents are separated. She is good in gymnastics. Asian girl Jade's (Janel Parrish) mom is a real Tiger mother. Therefore Jade is good in math & sciences. White girl Cloe (Skyler Shaye) is a bit clumsy but sporty. Her mother (Kim Morgan Greene) works in temporary jobs. All of them love fashion and together they are BFFs, yay! The girls enter Carry Nation high school together and everything seems fab.
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| Cloe, Jade, Yasmin and Sasha |
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| Manny |
The school is ruled using Divide et Impera- principle so the Principal's (fake-nosed Jon Voight) daughter Meredith (Chelsea Kane) assigns the newcomers to separated cliques. There are Dino-Students, Mimes, Emos, Disco-Dorks an many more. Jade joins the Science Team, Sasha joins the Cheerleaders, Cloe the Soccer Team and Yasmin would like to join the Choir but she is too shy so she chooses Journalists instead. At first they prefer not to be cliqued and that's what annoys Meredith. However the different hobbies cause them to drift apart naturally. So it is the end of BFFs. Tear.
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| The Principal and Meredith |
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| Dino-Students |
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| Typical high school chemistry class. |
Two years later...
A spaghetti incident strains what is left of the friendship of Bratz even further. However they settle their disagreements to help Cloe who is poor and they decide to help cliques mingle. Meredith retaliates with having a birthday party - for cliques only. Cloe needs new clothes so enter the shopping montage. The only way the girls can bring the cliques together is by winning the school's Talent contest. Luckily they have new friends: a deaf DJ (not as far-fetched as it sounds, see DJ Robbie Wilde for example) Dylan (Ian Nelson), Meredith's former underling Cameron (Stephen Ford) and science geek Dexter (Chet Hanks).
A spaghetti incident strains what is left of the friendship of Bratz even further. However they settle their disagreements to help Cloe who is poor and they decide to help cliques mingle. Meredith retaliates with having a birthday party - for cliques only. Cloe needs new clothes so enter the shopping montage. The only way the girls can bring the cliques together is by winning the school's Talent contest. Luckily they have new friends: a deaf DJ (not as far-fetched as it sounds, see DJ Robbie Wilde for example) Dylan (Ian Nelson), Meredith's former underling Cameron (Stephen Ford) and science geek Dexter (Chet Hanks).
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| Sad clowns |
Maybe the target audience (preteen girls) finds it street-credible representation of the Bratz-girls. Kids would probably be entertained by the cheery characters, bright colours and fancy clothes. The message is that main characters value their friendship over the social hierarchy and choose to be themselves despite what is expected from them. Also it has some messages about social pigeonholing and bullying. The main girls stand their ground and show talents in science, sports and fashion arts (in caricaturish ways of course). However it is a high school film for kids based on plastic dolls and in no way meant to be a realistic depiction of teen life. For the adult (male) viewer this goes to the "So bad it is good" territory. There is enough cheese for at least a dozen Quarter Pounders. Lots of open-mouthed overacting and shrill-voiced dialogue (OMG, Fabulous!). It is as all the actors were told to overact as much as possible except Jon Voight who underacts. Strangely after the terrible first half the second half got slightly more tolerable when the main plot materialized. The music was okay teen pop, similar music you could find in Disney's teen movies. The Nordic DVD contains also a Finnish dub but my head exploded when I turned it on so approach with caution.
Skyler Shaye looks a lot like Finnish pop singer Krista Siegfrids (known also for Eurovision 2013):
Trivia: Sam Raimi's daughter Emma appears as Little Girl. Kadeem Hardison performs Sasha's dad.
Rating: 
Good (if you are a little girl) /
So bad it is good (if you are an adult)
Good (if you are a little girl) /So bad it is good (if you are an adult)
Starring: Logan Browning, Janel Parrish, Nathalia Ramos, Skyler Shaye, Chelsea Kane (as Chelsea Staub), Anneliese van der Pol, Malese Jow, Ian Nelson, Stephen Ford (as Stephen Lunsford), Jon Voight, Lainie Kazan, William May, Emily Rose Everhard, Chet Hanks, Carl Rux, Kim Morgan Greene, Sasha Cohen, Andrea Edwards, Constance Hsu, Tami-Adrian George, Kadeem Hardison, Sean McNamara, Lee Reherman, Daniel Booko, Zach Cumer, Jerad Anderson, Madison Riley, Scot Nery, Brando Murphy, Sarah Hernandez, Rick Adams, Jackie Kreisler, Joe Damian Daly, Kelly Crean, Steven Anthony Lawrence, Michael Stellman, Nira Luna, Susie Singer Carter, Paula Froelich, Haley Busch, Jordan Benedict, Emma Raimi
Director: Sean McNamara
Director: Sean McNamara
Omg, indeed. Your description of the plot is hilarious and I did not know Jon Voight was in this!!
ReplyDeleteI had to glance couple of times just to make sure it was him. That fake nose was baffling.
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