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Dom Robinson reviews
Momentum Pictures
- Cert:
- Cat.no: MP724D
- Running time: 96 minutes
- Year: 2007
- Pressing: 2007
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 24 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Deleted Scenes, Music Videos, Discovering Bratz, A Passion for Fashion, The Music Of Bratz, Behind the Scenes, Trailers
Director:
- Sean McNamara
(Bratz: The Movie, TV: That’s So Raven)
Producers:
- Avi Arad, Isaac Larian and Steven Paul
Screenplay:
- Susan Estelle Jansen
Music:
- John Coda
Cast:
- Jade: Janel Parrish
Sasha: Logan Browning
Yasmin: Nathalia Ramos
Cloe: Skyler Shaye
Meredith Dimly: Chelsea Staub
Avery: Anneliese van del Pol
Quinn: Malese Jow
Dylan: Ian Nelson
Cameron: Stephen Lunsford
Principal Dimly: Jon Voight
Bubbie: Lainie Kazan
Manny: William May
Cherish Dimly: Emily Everhard
Dexter: Chet Hanks
Mr Whitman: Carl Rux
Katie (Cloe’s Mom): Kim Morgan Greene
Julie (Jade’s Mom): Constance Hsu
Alison (Sasha’s Mom): Tami-Adrian George
Sasha’s Dad: Kadeem Hardison
Vice Principal Sludge: Lee Reherman
Barbara Baxter Dimly: Susie Singer Carter
Note that there are a few plot spoilers in this review… although the plot isn’t something that can’t easily beguessed.
Firstly, as the four Bratz girls (right) wake up at the start of the film, no-one is ever that perky in the morning.Especially on the first day of a new school term at Carry Nation High School, but these girls’ idea of fun is todress trendy and show everyone that they’re cool, and who out of their friends can’t fail to be impressed bywardrobes the size of Narnia, which even then have hidden compartments…
Their nemesis is the evil Meredith (Chelsea Staub, below-right, relishing in this role) who is in a clique of her own as the school’s studentbody president but has the lunchtime area broken down into 48 separate seating plans for each clique of goths,skaters, disco dorks, gangstas, wannabe gangstas, etc. She is the daughter of Principal Dimly (Jon Voight,who’s rather sleepwalking through his performance), has a big-haired boyfriend called Cameron who looks likeAny Joseph Will Do‘s Lee Mead, and her two best friends are Avery (Anneliese van der Pol) andQuinn (Malese Jow) to whom she talks down at every chance. She’s so full of herself from dawn until duskand has a small dog that fits in her handbag called Paris.
Of the four girls playing the main characters, the actresses have similarly odd names. There’s Jade (JanelParrish) who’s into science and fashion, Sasha (Logan Browning) is the cheerleader, Cloe (SkylerShaye) is a bit of a clutz and plays women’s football and, finally, Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos) is themain singer of the four, and whose character seems a bit too much of a sickly sweet all-American girl. Yasminfancies Dylan, a school jock who is deaf but who doesn’t sound deaf because he can speak perfect English.He also has hidden musical talents as he can play the piano and spins discs, but thinks he hasn’t got a chanceof being into music due to his disability. Hmm… hasn’t he heard of Beethoven?
The girls want to take over and rule the talent contest, but what may harm their friendship is that their newcurriculum activities take them away from being together and split them off into their own groups.
Two years later… we meet up with them and their differences are made more apparent with a food fight in theschool dining area, but you know things will be back to normal before long, and as Yasmin becomes the singerout of the quartet, the others form her backing group and, thus, are born – Bratz, and they’re going in for thetalent show, the prize for which is a college scholarship, which they’ll give to Cloe who is seemingly theonly one of the four who seemingly comes from a poorhouse.
There’s a nice quote when it comes to shopping, the origins of which will go over the heads of this film’sintended audience, as Sasha comes out with, “I love the smell of retail in the morning.”
Overall, in Bratz: The Movie, there’s nothing new here. It’s mostly the kind of thing that’sdrummed out for every generation, but it’s done well for the generation who can’t live without their iPhonesand MySpace, so they’ll greatly enjoy it, and it will also pass a reasonable 90 minutes or so for the adultsthat end up sitting through it as well.
Oh, and something amusing taken from the BBFC website to explain the certificate:
- “The film was passed ‘PG’ for one scene of mild comic violence. The violence occurs during a comic scenewhere a seemingly meek teenage boy defeats a bullying and unsympathetic male schoolmate by using a fightingtechnique that is brief and lacks detail. The scene lacks the reassuring counterbalances that such scenes shouldoffer at ‘U’ as the boy is victorious by being presented as more adept at violent combat than his seeminglystronger foe, so the scene sits more comfortably at ‘PG’ where the humorous context and lack of detail preventsthe scene from placing the work at ’12’.
The film also contains very mild language (“God, “hell”) and slapstick comic violence.”
Working for the BBFC sounds like an amusing job to come out with all of that!
The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen print is a clean and clear one, with bright colours and locations reallystanding out. Given the intended audience, the print needs to be one that delivers a striking image to grabviewers’ attention, and it certainly does just that. There’s great use of the 2.35:1 widescreen frame is made,especially in the numerous split-screen sequences, often with the four girls in varying numbers, which would normallybe lost when cropped to 16:9 or 4:3 for Tv, but as the film was made with Super-35 if a decent open-matte printcan be struck from that then it should still be perfectly viewable, even though the tightness of the framingwill be lost.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix has little in the way of special effects, but fulfils the criteria of beltingout the songs without any problems.
The extras are plentiful and begin as follows:
- Deleted Scenes (10:00):7 here, and a mixture of deleted and extended ones. They’re presented in 2.35:1 letterbox but timecodes and nosubtitles.
Zoo Keeper is a good one at first, but goes on far too long.Dimly and Familia features Meredith and family talking to their Mum on a webcam, but as this isn’ta finished scene and the mother’s image would presumably have been put in afterwards, it seems odd to makethem look like they’re just talking to a static picture of their mother which is what we can see in thisclip.
I’d be inclined to put the penultimate clip back into the film, but I won’t mention the title of it as itcould be a spoiler.
- Music Videos: Two here: Fearless (3:48) by Daechelle and Rainy Day (3:27) fromJanel Parrish (right), and the latter video also appears during the closing credits.
- Discovering Bratz (12:48):Three short featurettes, about the casting for the film in the light of the popularity of the brand, folloiwing the on-set filming as ‘a day in the life’ and telling us how ‘Bratz are different’ because theydon’t conform to the rigmaroles of peer pressure. All of these and the following featurettes are shot in 16:9with anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen film clips.
- A Passion for Fashion (14:30):Three more featurettes, about their style, fashion sense, hair and make-up.
- The Music of Bratz (9:17):
And three more (why do they always come in threes?). This time about their music and dancing styles,making the music something the film’s target audience can relate to, and also the making of Janel Parrish’smusic video.
- Behind the Scenes (7:15):on… yes, three scenes.
- Trailers:These consist of a Trailer (1:14) and a Bratz Doll advert (oh:dear).
In addition to almost 50 minutes of short but sweet featurettes which will concisely provide information of valuefor its audience, there’s also a pre-DVD trailer for Penelope, but this should be in the main menu, notbefore the film, even if it is coming out in the cinema shortly rather than being out on DVD. This is not theage of the rental video!
The disc comes with English subtitles, there are 24 chapters to the film and the menus contain various tunesfrom the film although the backgrounds are static.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.