Spring Breakers

Can someone explain to me why SPRING BREAKERS was in the comedy section of my local department store? I can only imagine how many people saw this movie sitting on the shelf with it's cover portraying Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, and James Franco in beach-mode and thought, "Well this movie looks like a fun time! It's like THE HANGOVER for the Disney crowd!" I am, of course, assuming that the majority of people buying movies from my local department stores are fools who aren't familiar with movie ratings or aware of movie reviews. And I'm pretty sure I'm right. Anyway, SPRING BREAKERS is not a comedy and, if it is, I missed something somewhere. This movie is a 90 minute hallucination and a rough one. It centers on four longtime friends: Candy (Hudgens), Brit (Benson), Cotty (Korine), and Faith (Gomez). Spring Break has arrived and their too poor to leave campus when everyone heads down south to the beaches of Florida for a week of insane debauchery. We receive our first hint that these girls aren't quite right when Candy, Brit, and Cotty decide to rob an all-night chicken shack for their Spring Break funds. From there, it's beaches, booze, and bongs as the girls party it up until their arrested in a narcotics bust when they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Enter Alien…a wannabe gangster who makes his living dealing drugs and robbing spring-breakers. He bails out the girls and enlists them to join him in business, and it all goes nuts from there.

SPRING BREAKERS isn't so much a film as it is an experience. It's a visual journey, popping with neon color and thumping with an electronic soundtrack, that won't settle with most average viewers. I had a friend that wanted to see this movie purely for the bikini-clad stars but I warned him against it because I didn't want to hear the eventual complaints that he had no idea what was going on. While I'm totally cool with helping others experience new movies and different styles of filmmaking, I know there's a line and, in this instance, that line is filmmaker Harmony Korine. There is a story present in SPRING BREAKERS but it's done in such a unique and mind-bending fashion that I guarantee it'll turn a lot of people off. Personally, I enjoyed it. After I first watched it, it didn't take some processing on my part and multiple viewings have only made me appreciate it more. I'm a newbie when it comes to Harmony Korine's previous work. I've never seen KIDS or GUMMO but I've heard enough about them to know I need to check them out at some point. For now, SPRING BREAKERS is my first exposure to his work and it's got my attention. It pits a dark crime story against the vibrant energized atmosphere of the crazy college world of Spring Break. At least, the Spring Break you've seen on MTV…drunk, sexually jack-up college students going totally insane.

This is a movie about evil people. Seriously, all but one person in this movie is a sociopath. The only objectively good person in the movie bails as soon as things start going sour. The most fun is watching the dark side of these girls slowly reveal themselves as the movie goes on. You start to wonder who's really the one being manipulated: these girls or Alien? You know they're not your average college hotties early on when you see how easily crime comes to them, but you don't realize how cold they can be. Despite the girls' rapid descent into the seedier side of Spring Break, the violence isn't over-the-top here. The nudity is…so, you know, this really isn't for the actual longtime fans of people like Hudgens and Gomez. This is their attempt at breaking free from their Disney Channel roots. Hudgens had some success with her turn in SUCKER PUNCH but this secures it. I'm pretty sure pot-smoking and threesomes are a surefire way to bust out of that mold. Gomez doesn't go as nuts here but she's still doing her best to be seen as an actual actress. The performances are pretty good for what they are. James Franco has been receiving a lot of praise for his role as Alien. Honestly, he annoyed me the first time I watched the movie. Horribly. But it wasn't his performance, it's just that people like the grate on my nerves. Franco does a great job here, and it's one of his most strange performances.

SPRING BREAKERS isn't for everyone and I'd hope most people would know what they're settling in for if they decide to watch it. It's a gritty, surreal film with some nice eye candy and a foreboding atmosphere playing against the Spring Break wonderland we all envision when we think of college co-eds going nuts. It's a refreshing change from the usual mainstream release, even if it can be a little frustrating to watch at times.

I watched this film on Amazon Prime where its genres are listed as "comedy, drama", which does such a huge disservice to what this film is.

It is in no way a comedy at all so get that idea out of your head before you watch this film. In reality it is a dark crime drama which has an incredible tone and vibe to it.

At times tone and vibe are favoured over plot and storytelling, but having digested this film a bit I don't think I mind. There were some wildly good visuals in this film and the direction from Harmony Korine was top notch.

I loved the performances from all of the cast. Franco's character was very out there but it worked in the context of the film.

A wildly underrated film which was probably hampered by the fact that people were expecting a frat bro comedy, when in actuality this is a much more elevated and stylish affair.

This is a strange film. On the one hand, it looks likes an extended music video, filled with mindless scenes of teenagers having one big party. On the other hand, there's clearly more to it. Some characters are so one-dimensional and cartoon-like, that the whole film becomes a sort of mockery of the modern teenage culture. This ambiguity is very clever, because the film appeals to a teenage audience as well as to the art-house audience Harmony Korine is usually associated with.

But at the same time, this ambiguity stands in the way of 'Spring Breakers' being a really good film. Unlike other serious movies about teenage culture, like 'Thirteen', 'Ghost World', Korine's own 'Kids' or the recent 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', this film looks too easy. The temptation of showing lots of girls in bikini has been stronger than the ambition of trying to tell something meaningful.

Still, there are some nice moments. The hold-up in the restaurant is beautifully filmed from the window of a car slowly passing by. It's nice that, later on in the film, the director shows some short moments of what happened inside the restaurant. I would have liked more ambitious film making like that, and less footage of wild parties.

Spring Breakers (2012)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Four college friends don't have the money for spring break so three of them decide to hold up a restaurant. Now with the money they head down to Florida to drink and experience life but soon they run into a gangster (James Franco) and their future hits a bumpy road. I understand SPRING BREAKERS is getting mixed reviews but I'm going to just flat out say that I hated the picture. I thought it was a rather confusing mess with unlikeable and annoying characters, a horrid story and an ending that's so bad that I really wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Director Harmony Korine makes 90% of the film about style as we get all sorts of strange camera shots, bizarre editing and slow motion shots of bodies giggling and for the life of me I can't understand the point. It certainly doesn't add anything to the story but I will admit it was a "new" way to tell this type of story. With that said, just because it's new doesn't mean it's good and in fact it's just downright annoying. Even worse is the so-called story, which I've heard from some was supposed to be a satire while others appear to be taking it very serious. To me it wasn't clear what the director was trying to do with the material but if we were supposed to like these characters that certainly doesn't happen. I'd say they're all rather hate worthy but at the same time if we were supposed to hate them then the film really lets all of them off easy. The ending was just a downright joke and whatever "meaning" we're supposed to take from it is even worse. The film's selling point seems to be the "Disney Girls Gone Wild" aspect as Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Heather Morris all tease up the screen. Performance wise they're fine but their characters are just so bad who cares about anything else? Franco chews up the scenery as if he's the son of Max Cady (the Robert DeNiro character in CAPE FEAR) but it's hard to take the character too serious. Again, I understand some are finding deep, haunting meanings to this film but to me it's just a complete joke from start to finish. If you want to see a much better movie about social media and today's culture then check out GOD BLESS America.

Very creative stunning shots. Watching the violence and crime scenes mixed in with the spring break experience, brought back that sense of shock I felt as a kid watching spring breakers party for the first time. Lots of beautiful girls and there's a sense of comedy and irony. I loved when the heavy gangster is playing Britney Spears on the piano.