Bratz: La película

I genuinely think it's a good movie, it's got a below average plot and the acting is from about E-list actors, but there's something really nice about it, it's really quite nostalgic for me and the fact I could relate with this when I was younger, idk but generally it's really appealing and although it's got shitty reviews, it's on Netflix and Lovefilm, won't cost you any extra but I do recommend it. The film in itself is about 4 girls who are completely different however, they still have a close bond, but as they go through school they get split apart by the things they like and within two years, they've almost forgotten each other. They vow to change however it's difficult and that's all I'm really gonna say, it's pretty corny but it's not bad once every so often, eh?

If you missed the ridiculously shallow ego-trip of Hilary Duff "Material Girls" last year, don't worry, here's another shallow teen movie for you that steals so much from Mean Girls that it hurts. The movie is based on the ugly dolls with the same name with perfect bodies and lots of money - only in the movie, the blond girl doesn't have any money at all. But don't worry, when she really needs it (for a dress), her friends have gift certificates.

Sure enough, no one would like to see a movie with a bunch of fat teens running around acting silly but did the movie have to star four slender girls with attitude problems? Because let's face it, these girls think that appearance is the most important thing in the world. They're seriously not much better than their enemy - Meredith. And by the way - how did the word 'brat' become a positive word? For me it's still a very negative word meaning that your parents have spoiled you.

Bratz doesn't want to give its core audience (small girls) a good message. It wants them to realize how important fashion and appearance is - and if you have an ugly outfit on - always make sure to keep a fashion emergency kit with you. Ugh.

Let me be clear here first of all: I'm in my twenties, and I saw Bratz, but not for any kind of simple lewd intentions at gawking at sexy teens in gobs of make-up and slutty clothes. My intentions were a little more pure, on a movie-geek level. Or rather, I went in with the expectation that it *would* be a bad movie, and even one that would go to such ridiculous lengths as to be awesomely bad, to the level of something like Ghost Rider, where taking it seriously would provide brain damage, and by not would give some form of entertainment (especially if you have friends to make jokes with during the movie, which for something like Bratz isn't inappropriate to 'ruin' for the rest of the audience). It's a staggering, warped view of high school life, the connections made in 'cliques' and social order, and about the bonding between girls who can't get enough of talking to each other through their web-cams. It also has enough montages to kill a few horses, Jon Voight with not only a prosthetic nose but a statue of his head with the same fake nose, a fluffy dog who gets beauty treatment along with her owner, a mariachi band that lives at the house of the Hispanic girl of the Bratz (and, for some reason, this doesn't seem too out of place, especially when they show up at talent shows), and...Jesus, did I mention the montages?

But for all of this, if one is in the right frame of mind, it's hilarious, even achingly and hysterically, funny material, whether it was intentional or not. Frankly, I'm sure that the filmmakers didn't quite know what they were doing outside of making a big long commercial with the intellectual value of Tropicana fruit punch. But on those levels it almost works at times at looking like an unintentional satire; what is one to make of the symbolism of the heightened security at the high school envisioned by the school emblem and trophies: a hand holding an ax, with little figures holding the axes all over the school in one form or another? It also makes for some ample absurd moments when just seeing the four Bratz having a fight amongst themselves about sticking together or going off into their other interests (naturally, they have only one aptitude a piece, one soccer, one cheer-leading, one science, and one journalism/singing), and as well the diabolical attempts to thwart all of their fun by the nasty, less than one-note daughter of the principle, who goes for a 2nd super sweet sixteen party even after she's turned 16.

Maybe if you're already quite a young girl, seeing this movie might not matter too much in the grand scheme of things as far as real psychological impact. But at the same time if one were to look objectively, Bratz's message is a little scrambled and quite off in any positive aspect. Does one stick with friends or act individualist or, um, like, go into another clique or another table? How about staying fashionable, in the glammed up style that the girls go to lengths to do- leading up to, of course, the Bratz mobile that they walk out of to the climactic talent show- even in the face of peril? It really doesn't serve any artistic integral purpose whatsoever either. So, in the end, it works best as a so-bad-it's-still-bad-but-uproarious treat for those who gorge on works that slip by in pop culture that are so sapped with the vigor of commercialism that to read through the mixed messages would take a pot of coffee and a fine-toothed comb. But along the way, it's got montages, and songs, LOTS of songs- which are, as one might imagine who doesn't listen to Radio Disney, the worst trash possible right now. Brattitude!!

Bratz is not a good movie. It has a lot of stereotypes. It was trying to be one of those chick flicks but did not achieve. The deaf representation is not good. Deaf people are not just all the way deaf. Deafness is a spectrum. Plus nobody would ever read lips that far lol. If you want to watch Bratz, I recommend watching the cartoon version (the superior)

Bratz, based off the wildly popular line of dolls, is actually a much more tolerable film than the one I was expecting to be greeted with. Rather than a shallow, frothy, candy-colored stroll through ditzy women, inappropriate fashion, and immature circumstances, I received a mildly-entertaining, high-energy romp filled with attractive leads, all of whom at least carry their part with some semblance of conviction, acceptable, if scatter-plotted themes and ideas, and a pleasantly fun diversion through the world that sort of mimics our reality but still finds itself wholly trapped in cinema's, family-friendly kind of reality.

Make no mistake, Bratz isn't really a good film and it wouldn't be the first thing I recommend your daughters see. However, for a film that concerns three teen girls who are obsessed with fashion and self-expression, we could've been handed a much more harmful piece of cinema. Even as a male child, I always wondered why so much outrage and hate was directed at Barbie, who predicated herself off of being a good-natured sweetheart, was always the subject of vehement feminist controversy while the Bratz doll-line went under the radar, with their skimpy attire, makeup-heavy faces, and distracting artificiality. You want to talk about giving young girls the false sense of beauty and exercising the gender roles? The Bratz essentially were telling them not to leave the house without a tube-top, eyeliner, and eyeshadow.

Bratz follows four lifelong best-friends - Cloe (Skyler Shaye), Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos), Sasha (Logan Browning), and Jade (Janel Parrish) - as they enter high school with an attitude to keep each other as close as possible. However, they are heavily burdened by the idea that the self-indulgent, wildly narcissistic class president Meredith Baxter Dimly (Chelsea Kane) wants to identify every student by what clique they should belong to, forcing nothing but social segregation in the already ominous halls of high school. Of course, Meredith finds the free-spirited girls disgusting and offsetting to her plan, but finds little to worry after two years of high school.

Yes, by junior year, the lifelong friends have become nothing but faces in crowded hallways to each other, drifting towards their own sort of cliques, falling victim to Meredith's plan to keep all students part of their own little class of people. Cloe becomes invested in soccer, Sasha becomes a gifted and determined cheerleader, Jade embraces her inner-scientist with the chemistry club, and Yasmin sort of watches it all happen, while quietly participating in journalism. Yet the girls are brought together by four colossal, incredulous misunderstands at lunchtime, which reminds them that they have fallen prey to Meredith's system. Upon reuniting the group to prove that they can still be inseparable and devoted to each other, Meredith sets out to destroy the girls by recreating the party she threw for her sweet sixteen, making it even bigger and better, which she hopes will propel herself to the known voice of the school while the four girls wallow in their shame.

I laud Bratz for at least doing what I never thought would be done in one of the most ostensibly shallow teen films of the last decade, which is etch some solid, vital commentary about high school into its material. While many films have addressed the abundance of cliques and groups in high school, Bratz recognizes the problem with it, which is that kids get the idea that they shouldn't be seen with kids of different cliques, which stunts their emotional and mental growth all the more. Yes, Bratz would be better if it didn't make the cliques so overblown and farcical that they tread the line of being part of a high school satire, but its acknowledgment of a real problem in a pleasantly real way is actually heartwarming to say the least.

Then there's the abundance of singing, dancing, and just hanging out these girls do, which is surprisingly fun and enjoyable, given how shallow it sounds. These are teen girls being teen girls, minus the sarcastic and childish lingo utilized on contemporary kids shows like iCarly and Victorious, but also without the biting wit and commentary of something like Mean Girls, one of this particular's decades smartest teen films.

Bratz essentially wants to be a flashier, more stylistically-potent Mean Girls, but its reliance on scenes that are too goofy and ridiculous to be taken seriously and its repetitive nature are what hinder it from living up to what it could be. The visuals are eye-popping, the music is catchy, if existing from the often forgettable subgenre of bubblegum pop that expires quickly, and the four leads are all charming with their smiley charisma and micro-mini fashionista sense, but the film simply has too much going on to really settle on a focus and it bogged down by scenes that are either not funny or heavy-handed in their moralizing. But the fact that there's moralizing in a film called Bratz, taken from the line of dolls that look the way they do, is surprising enough, giving the film much more leverage and likability than I could've ever imagined.

Starring: Skyler Shaye, Nathalia Ramos, Logan Browning, Janel Parrish, and Chelsea Kane. Directed by: Sean McNamara.