| Product: |
Bratz: The Movie (DVD) |
| Date: |
29.01.08 (104 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Reminds you how good Mean Girls was
Disadvantages: 90% of the film
Bratz is a name that will be familiar to all parents of pre teen girls, they started of as a range of dolls, the new Barbie/Sindy for the current generation. Extremely popular the Bratz brand has expanded into many different styles, sizes, toys, computer games and more. Now they have made that jump from animated to 'real life' movie action.
Bratz has been compared to the wonderful and witty Mean Girls, but it is nowhere near up to the level of that fabulous film. It certainly doesn't possess any of the style or class of Mean Girls and the script is aimed at a much younger audience and only that audience, there is no attempt to pitch it at different levels for multiple age group enjoyment.
Bratz is the story of Chloe (the football/soccer star), Yasmin (the shy singer), Jade (the science nerd & fashionista) and Sasha (the Cheerleader). As the story begins all four are waking up and about to prepare themselves for their first day in high school. All four are excited about this new part of their lives and plan together, via their computers and webcams, what they are going to wear before heading off into the enormous high school they are about to start at... and yes it is enormous, even compared to the normal High schools we see in movies.
The school has a highly regimented clique system (pronounced click by those strange Americans... or is it just me who has it wrong?) organised and ran by Meredith, the school president and daughter of the Principal. She just HAS to have everyone in the set cliques she arranges for them (jocks, loners, disco freaks and ones who wear dinosaurs on their heads!) and she doesn't like it that our four heroines want to sit together and not where she wants them to...... it just is not on!
So begins the normal teenage tale of individuality against conformity, something that resonates with everyone when they are a teenager, and to some extent all through their life.
Bratz is bright, breezy, fun and completely vacuous. There is nothing in it at all that will keep the attention of anyone over the age of twelve, at the most. Of course that is their target audience but the best of this type of film have a level that can be enjoyed by all... the aforementioned Mean Girls, Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You for example.
There is awful a fundamental flaw in the script. These girls are meant to be 14/15 (I'm guessing), a time of change, when they turn from little girls into young women but at one stage in the film the story jumps forward two years and not one of them has changed in the slightest. It was a stupid and unnecessary idea story wise and just makes you stop and wonder what they are playing at. As much as I found the film uninteresting as it was this move just annoyed me. Without going into detail it really did not make any sense at all in context with the characters and was a plot device that just made everything look stupid.
There is nothing in this film to recommend it to anyone except children under 9/10, girls that is, or those who are really desperate to relive their teenage years.
You have to wonder what has happened to Jon Voights career that he has ended up appearing in this pile of tosh, maybe he has young daughters, or granddaughters, and they wanted him to be in it!
Mean Girls had a sarcastic and witty side to it, and a personable young star, that made it fun for all ages and hence a big hit. Bratz fails to manage that and therefore becomes less of a marketable and watachable film for an audience not comprising of preteen girls. Nothing wrong with that in the long run but parents being made to watch it with a group of young girls may just end up falling asleep.
Summary: Might be good for preteen girls.... possibly!
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