Flop tarts

>> Doll-franchise adaptation Bratz is an
unworthy addition to the teenybopper canon

by MALCOLM FRASER

2007 is turning out to be a beacon year for toy-franchise adaptation films, with first Transformers and now Bratz gracing our screens. It seems strangely apropos that less than 24 hours after the deaths of Bergman and Antonioni, I found myself witnessing another nail in the coffin of intelligent cinema.

Some argue that the Bratz dolls, a multi-ethnic crew of fashion-obsessed tarts, are a method of indoctrinating pre-teen girls into a culture of oversexualization and materialism, while others...well, actually, there’s no other sensible argument to be made. The creepiness of the whole thing is reinforced as the movie begins with a kiddie music-box score, which then transforms into a cheap club beat as the girls rise from slumber and get skanked up for their first day of high school.

Played with appropriate enthusiasm by newcomers Nathalia Ramos, Janel Parrish, Logan Browning and Skyler Shaye, the girls arrive at a school whose cliques are kept fascistically segregated by queen bee Meredith (Chelsea Staub). Her father, the hapless principal, is played by Jon Voight. Check out this man’s recent resume on IMDB sometime, and then maybe a bunch of us can take up a collection so he doesn’t have to degrade himself like this anymore.

The Bratz, who initially display a laudable sense of non-conformity and friendship, get sucked into the school’s cliquish ways, but eventually come to their senses and unite to dethrone the evil Meredith by performing a stirring song about “bratitude” at a talent show. Director Sean McNamara (whose other offences include 3 Ninjas and discovering Hilary Duff) slaps the whole thing together with incoherent speed, not only in the actual editing but in the dramatic development; strings are often cued up to evoke sympathy for characters we’ve met minutes before, and plot twists are tied and untangled within seconds.

The unfortunate thing about Bratz is that the teenybopper-bubblegum film need not be a total waste of time (witness Clueless or Bring It On for actually enjoyable, somewhat intelligent examples of the genre). But who are we kidding—hopefully, the only way you’ll be seeing this film is if you have a preteen girl in your life, in which case you’ll have no choice.

Bratz opens this Friday, Aug. 3

>> Movie Listings