Reviewed by Anna Krahn
Stars Nathalia Ramos, Janel Parrish, Logan Browning,
Skyler Shaye, Jon Voight, Chelsea Staub, Lainie Kazan,
Anneliese Van Der Pol, Malese Jow, Ian Nelson
Written by Susan Estelle Jansen
Certification UK PG | US PG
Runtime 110 minutes
Directed by Sean McNamara
When I was eight, I wanted to be a princess or a unicorn — or, best of all, a unicorn princess with lots of magical powers. Fast forward to 2007, where 8-year-olds dream of being Bratz — girls with killer looks (apart from the abnormally large heads) and fashionable clothes.
The Bratz dolls have given Barbie a run for her money and parents much cause for despair, so the logical next step was Bratz: The Movie, taken on by director Sean McNamara (Raise Your Voice, That’s So Raven.) The story tells the high school journey of four BFFs (Best Friends Forever, duh): Yasmin (Ramos), Cloe (Shaye), Jade (Parish) and Sasha (Browning). Each girl has individual interests and talents — cheerleading, soccer, journalism and science — but the four also share a love of all things fashion and shopping epitomised by the line: “Work that IQ, girl, but please don't lose your passion for fashion.”
When they enter their first day of high school they find the whole place has been cunningly divided into cliques by Meredith (Staub) — the most popular girl in school, class president and daughter of the headmaster, played by Jon Voight (Why, Mr Voight? Why?) The girls try to defy their respective cliques, but are soon divided and drift apart. After two years they realise what they’ve lost and band together as the Bratz, with a large dose of “Bratitude” to defeat the evil Meredith. It’s not the most complex storyline in the world, includes scenes that are shamelessly stolen from Mean Girls and Clueless and boasts a script that could possibly give Glitter a run for its money in the forced dialogue stakes. It gets the point across though and, to be fair, the main themes of individuality and friendship are poignant and important lessons for pre-teens. Unfortunately, the writers seem to think children won’t get it so they broach the subject in a way which is about as subtle as holding up a placard and shouting through a megaphone: “Be yourself! Friends are like, totally, important!”
The Bratz dolls have caused a lot of controversy, offending parents who find the concept shallow and the dolls more than a little slutty. Luckily, the film does make an effort to steer away from that by making the Bratz themselves generally nice, not so slutty girls. Unluckily, they are still shallow. The whole “be an individual” thing is ever so slightly contradicted when the Bratz attempt a Clueless style make-over of other students to turn them into Bratz clones.
The film is also quite funny, although probably not in a way its makers intended — deaf jock telling one of the Bratz she has the most amazing voice after he “feels” it through the speakers is classic. For this reason, if you are the parent of a pre-teen it’s probably best not to take them to the cinema to see the film as you’ll have to deal with the “why are you laughing?” face and stop yourself from shouting “because it’s utterly ridiculous”, so wait till it comes out on DVD or TV so you don’t actually have to watch it. And if you’re thinking it’s one of those fun family movies that transcends age barriers. Don’t. It’s really not.
Nevertheless, if I put myself in the shoes of the target audience — ie, little girls aged between 8 and 12 — I think I would actually like it because, in an extraordinarily dumb kind of way, the film is quite cute. I’d probably also want to go shopping straight afterwards, force my parents to buy me lots of clothes and then try to “customise” said clothes, leading my poor long-suffering parents to cry out in despair about their hard earned money being thrown down the toilet while I simply cannot understand why they are trying to stifle my “passion for fashion”. Little girls will like it, but parents and anyone else: be warned.