Grade: F
Following in the petite footsteps of Barbie, the sassier—some would say positively slutty—Bratz line of dolls have taken to the screen to bolster sales. Previous Bratz movies—there have actually been a half dozen of them—have been animated and non-theatrical. This one is the first live-action effort, and the first released into theatres. But it’s still basically a cable-ready cartoon.
Like the sort of fare directed to tween girls on the tube, “Bratz” is dumb, garish and formulaic, built on the template of “Mean Girls” by way of “High School Musical” (the second installment of which is around the corner) except that there are fewer laughs than in the former and fewer songs than in the latter. Like “Musical,” its message is anti-campus clique and pro-friendship and romance. But it easily trumps both models in the areas for which the doll line itself has so often been criticized—crass materialism and conspicuous consumption. These girls spend more time on clothes and shoes than relationships. And teaching kids that’s a good thing is pretty revolting.
In this incarnation, the Bratz are four “best friends forever” (or BFF)—Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos), Jade (Janel Parrish), Sasha (Logan Browning) and Cloe (Skyler Shaye)—who, as the picture opens, are entering a California high school (though they look like they all left fourteen behind a long time ago). Carry Nation H.S. is a real white-bread place presided over by dopey Principal Dimly (Jon Voight) and his daughter Meredith Baxter (Chelsea Staub), a “mean girl” who’s already the reigning student-body president (and the real ruler of the place) though apparently just a freshman herself. (We later learn that she and her father live in a plastic mansion on an estate that would overshadow those owned by the wealthiest music moguls—a fact that any academic must find way beyond ludicrous.) Meredith becomes the girls’ nemesis after they refuse to conform to her system of campus regimentation.
The girls, like their doll forebears, may be carefully multi-ethnic but they’re uni-cultural, all interested in personal success, having fun and looking good. Nonetheless the quartet’s broken up by their individual “talents.” As they enter their junior year (the picture abruptly jumps ahead two years), Cloe’s become part of the soccer team, Jade’s joined the science-geek table, and Sasha’s one of the cheerleaders. Yasmin’s left out on her own, though she can always lean on her grandmother (or housekeeper—it’s never really made clear) Bubbie (Lainie Kazan), who boosts her spirit when she’s low.
Trouble arises when the four decide not only to become musketeers again but to break the rigid lines of demarcation Meredith has used to maintain her stranglehold on the student body. That, and their decision to enter the campus talent show—something Meredith always wins—bring her wrath down on them, especially when she gets a chance to humiliate Yasmin, their proposed lead singer but terrified of warbling before an audience, at her second (!) sweet sixteen party, an enormous bash covered by MTV. The plan, naturally, turns out very differently from what she’d hoped, much to the delight of her sarcastic little sister; and so does the follow-up talent show.
Of course, there are also some boys involved. One is Cameron (Stephen Lunsford), whose lap-dog service to Meredith is eventually undercut by her nasty ways (and alternate attractions), and Dylan (Ian Nelson), a football hunk who, after a cutesy-bad first meeting with Yasmin, is attracted to her. Certainly the goofiest twist in an already seriously nutty script lies in making Dylan a deaf music-lover able to appreciate Yasmin’s voice by putting his hand on the loudspeaker through which it’s pumped in order to “feel” its quality—an idea stolen from “Children of a Lesser God” that worked in that context but certainly doesn’t here.
As you might expect, “Bratz” has been given a brash, neon-colored look that assaults the eye, and costumes (by Bernadene Morgan) so wildly flamboyant that they make the mantra “passion for fashion” seem more like an obsession. It would be remiss not to mention the two big musical numbers toward the close, the idiotic opulence of which—in the high school context—crosses the boundary into pure madness, especially when they’re done to the loony lyrics of Ron Fair’s songs. It’s as if the makers decided that what the little girls in the audience would take to is a wretchedly overproduced Las Vegas casino show.
It’s difficult to call the mugging that passes for performances in stuff like this acting, but surely special opprobrium has to be reserved for Jon Voight as the doofus principal. While one can’t call this the nadir of his career when you recall that his resume includes “SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2,” it’s certainly among the low-lights. This campus cretin wouldn’t have been out of place on “Saved by the Bell.”
As plastic as the dolls it’s based on, “Bratz” is the sort of silly, vacuous fluff that seems designed for sleepovers. Too bad it’s more likely to fill little girls’ heads with dreams of packed clothes closets and sequenced dance outfits than anything worthwhile.