Les Cheetah Girls : Un monde unique

I watched the newest Cheetah Girls movie for one reason only: to see what kind of respect it paid to the Bollywood movie industry and the great Bollywood musicals that have been produced over the years, given that the plot of the movie has to do with the Cheetah Girls leaving the U.S. to star in a Bollywood movie musical being produced in Bombay (Mumbai), home of the world's largest movie industry. This was a rare opportunity to acquaint the Disney Channel audience with a phenomenon that most of them know nothing about. I was hoping the film would include at least one bonafide Bollywood musical number, sung in Hindi and danced by teams of Indian dancers, male and female. Barring that, I was hoping they'd include at least one scene showing the Cheetah Girls watching an actual Bollywood movie, giving the producers the chance to include at least a 30-second clip from a genuine Bollywood musical number, just so the audience could see what a Bollywood production looked and sounded like and get an understanding of the genre's immense popularity in other parts of the world and why exactly the three young heroines would even bother making such a trip.

Sadly, that wasn't to be. There were no Bollywood numbers in this film. Every song in the film was standard Disney Channel teen pop and they all sounded alike. Granted, two of the songs, "Dance Me if You Can" and "One World," include Bollywood elements in the choreography, and "One World," the big finale, includes significant Indian cultural elements in the production design, so I suppose you can say the audience got a whiff of Bollywood, if not exactly a taste. Still, the accompanying songs were standard Cheetah Girl material and sounded nothing like any songs you'd hear on a Bollywood soundtrack. It wasn't enough to suit me and it strikes me as a wasted opportunity. It's okay, I guess, to celebrate "One World," as long as it's the Disney Channel that's calling the shots.

For those fans who've seen this movie and are curious to follow up and see some actual Bollywood musicals, I'd urge you to look up the films of Aishwarya Rai. For starters, I'd recommend TAAL (1999), MOHABBATEIN (2000), and DEVDAS (2002). Perhaps other Bollywood fans here can give additional recommendations.

Given the title of this comment it goes without saying that this isn't exactly the most favourable of reviews. However, I feel that two stars does justice to how terrible this film truly was. Sure, it's not exactly a first-class production, and it's not supposed to be...but it still sucks!

First, and perhaps foremost, the music is absolutely horrid. For about 70% of the movie you would have to listen to the sounds of the Cheetah Girls, which are at best mediocre, and you could say that the music in this film sort of resembles that of the other two, except perhaps 100 times worse. Whenever a song came on I could feel my soul shrivelling up in anxiety, just waiting for the song to finish. Ever felt like that before? Well guess what? If you watch this movie it'll happen to you about 20 times over.

I mean come on, people! The music didn't even sound remotely Indian (unlike in the Cheetah Girls 2, which actually had some Spanish rhythms, and one or two of the songs were actually pretty good), and yes, throwing in one or two Indian instruments doesn't cut it, it still sounds like cheesy American Disney-pop.

If music wasn't the "foremost" criticism, then perhaps the lack of Galleria's (Raven-Symone) presence was. Removing Galleria is like removing fish from the sea or breast implants from Pamela Anderson or some other crazy stuff like that. Oh, and don't even get me started on how they actually "killed" her off (I don't want to reveal plot elements, so if you really want to know, find out yourself).

All in all, it's nothing more than a cheesefest. Sure, cheesiness is fine - to a certain extent. This just went way too far and broke the cheese-o-meter. It's the kind of cheese that develops on people's feet, not from milk. Sickening.

It wasn't that bad. But how could they take a lead actress out of the film(who was the best) and expect everybody to tune in. The storyline was weak and every time you turn around there was a song. The dance numbers was the best part. Thats what saved the movie. They were better than the first 2. The songs were cute but not enough to compete with the second. Aqua was annoying as usual. But the best song on the movie was Cheetah Love.If Raven wasn't going to be in it, they should had just left it alone. But I can't talk because it wasn't aimed for the older demographic, it was aimed for the younger! I'll get the soundtrack but the let DVD collect dust in the stores!!

I really didn't like the movie. Argh! It was a disappointment. Gosh. I liked the first and the second movie better.

Loosing Raven as one of their casts really made the movie B-O-R-I-N-G. Although, shooting the movie in India was great. But still, the movie itself was really, really lame.

They didn't even narrated why Galleria wasn't a part of the third movie. Not even a glimpse.

My niece keeps on asking me why Raven was out of the picture because no clue or information in the movie was included.

They should at least stated in the synopsis of the film why they didn't include Raven in the movie. Didn't they know that the kids who watched and will be watching that movie would ask? Doing so doesn't make them a really good film maker.

Okay, so obviously I wasn't going to expect that a Cheetah Girls film would be 10-star material, but this is Ridiculous. Firstly, it seemed that the film was too short and simplistic. There was only one main plot line, and even that was kind of boring. The romantic subplots seem to be added as an after-thought. And even thought the film was only and hour and 30 minutes long, it was padded with songs. Mediocre songs. Speaking of the music, I think one other reviewer noted the lack of "Bollywood Music". As far as I could see, the "Indian Flavor" in the film's music was limited to a few generic tunes from a few generic Indian instruments in the background. It wasn't just the music either; it almost seemed like the Cheetah Girls watched one or two random bollywood flicks and decided to go to India. There was very little Rajasthani Culture displayed in the movie. Sure they ate some North Indian food (the kind you find in Western restaurants) and wore low quality saris, but that was about it. That was the extent of their "in-depth" travel to India.

It kind of annoys me that everyone in the movie and this website assumed that India=Bollywood. Which, I assure you, is not true: that would be like saying all European movies are from France. And in response to Brian Camp, I could recommend some other bollywood movies, but not Aishwarya Rai. And I can only recommend Taal or Devdas for music, that's all.

For more substantial films, I recommend "LAGE RAHO MUNNA BHAI"(2006) or "RANG DE BASANTHI" (2006). Or for some Indian movies that aren't from Bollywood: "ROJA" (1992), "ALAI PAYUTHEY" (2000), "GODAVARI" (2006), and "ANUKOKUNDA OKA ROJU" (2005).