As part of my new makeover for Animation Unplugged, each week I'll be letting you decide what I'll be reviewing on Fridays through a poll on my Twitter profile. Go to my Twitter @micablackers and cast your vote for what you want me to review on Friday. This week's choices are:
1) Hugh Jackman: The Man. The Music. The Show Tour (yes, miraculously got tickets!)
2) Beauty and the Beast: 1991 vs 2017
3) The Prince of Egypt
4) Dragon's Lair games
Voting closes on Wednesday, so make your choice now!
Mica xxx

Welcome to the New Animation Unplugged!

You may have noticed something...different about my blog. Well, after six years, I thought it was time for an overdue makeover. Noticing it started to look dated and wasn't reflective of my personality or aesthetic, I just thought why the hell not. Don't worry I'll still be reviewing animated films in the same format as before, but I'll also be expanding my filmography with more live action (specifically chick flicks) picks with the possibility of also expanding to television and theatre depending on how much free time I'll have once I get a job now that I've finished my university studies (finally). Plus I have another blog which is starting to look stale, so may as well kill two birds with one stone and combine what I love into this one.
Hope you like what's to come and I'm looking forward to writing more reviews for you to enjoy even when most of them may be rage inducing.
Mica xxx

Bratz: The Movie

I was initially planning on reviewing all of the Bratz animated movies and TV series like the Barbie movies I marathoned a few years ago, but I thought not to because a) I have more important things to do with my time, b) there are several spin-offs which I don't care about and c) I know all of them will be bad unlike the Barbie films where a few surprised me in spite of their quality and they at least try and send good messages unlike the Bratz focusing on being valley girl tropes. I might do one or two in the future, but I'll try and sum up why I don't like Bratz in general through this review. Released in 2007, the film was a critical and box office bomb, all topped off with several Razzie nominations including Worst Picture and Worst Actress for the four leads. While they lost to Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me, was this the more deserving victor (loser?) of those Razzies? Let's take a look.




Story: Imagine every single high school movie cliche aimed at tweens dumped in a blender with racist, sexist and ageist stereotypes. That is only the table scraps of how insanely awful this movie's plot is. Or rather a series of events with no logic, structure or thought put into them! More of an in name only adaptation, the Bratz Cloe, Jade, Sasha and Yasmin go to high school, drift apart because of the cliques they join (and a blonde dictator demanding order just because a high school movie needed a blonde bitch villain), become friends again, said bitch attempts to split them up by throwing another Super Sweet 16 (sure that won't date the movie...) and it all leads up to a big talent show nobody would care about in reality. With the first ten minutes already worthy of a film, the pacing is so rushed to the point there's a two year time jump in those ten minutes when the protagonists (and I'm really stretching my limits using that word) feel like they're still in square one with their extracurricular endeavours. And is it any surprise these extracurricular activities dictate their lives when there are more pressing matters for senior students like getting ready for college that's briefly mentioned through the talent show's prize being a scholarship? Yes, it's as unrealistic and stupid as it sounds. With numerous cliched subplots which never connect or have anything resembling a payoff, it felt like the writers were obligated to include them and had never bothered to collect the dolls, let alone watch the direct to DVD films to understand Bratz's world or how high school really works. However, even after everything I've mentioned with this turd of a film, the worst aspect is easily the double standards of its messages about being yourself and not conforming to society's expectations. Why should we believe that when every single character can be defined by their appearance, high school clique and ethnicity? This is the kind of film which acts like it never cares about the intelligence of its audience of mostly preteen girls, which is possibly the most insulting part of all of this. You just feel the corporate machinery going on behind the scenes once you watch how this story fails in every degree possible.

Visuals: I'm not going to say much on the visuals, but I think it's important to mention them as this was supposed to be an animated film. With that said, the filmmaker's attempts to translate it into live action fail utterly. This can be best shown through the over-saturated colour pallette and awkwardly timed and edited slapstick (the best examples being the food fight and Meredith's Sweet 16). Not helping are the glaring continuity errors from blatant costume changes inbetween shots to some of the most obvious stunt doubles whose faces are barely hidden. It made me question whether the editors kept them in to troll the audience and filmmakers or because they knew how bad it was so they decided not to try and salvage it. And I know it sounds odd given that the Bratz are all about having a passion for fashion, but the costumes felt like a mix of restricted and over the top. If they wanted to go over the top on the movie's other aspects, they should've just gone all out like the dolls because then they could've had a bit of a self awareness to the material. But nope. This film's visual aesthetic is a prime example of why need to think about your medium carefully before putting your money where your mouth is.

Characters: As I mentioned in the story, for a movie trying to shove the "Be Yourself" message in your face, every single character can be defined by their appearance. Cloe's (Skyler Shaye) the sporty one while supposedly being clumsy and comes from a poor family despite owning a moped and the latest technology in 2007, Sasha's (Logan Browning) the token black sassy cheerleader with divorced parents who I'm sure won't get back together by the end (a trope which can fuck off, excuse my French),  Jade's (Janel Parrish) the token Asian science geek who secretly loves fashion which I'm sure her parents disapprove of and Yasmin's (Nathalia Ramos) the token Hispanic (who has a mariachi band in her house because MEXCIO) who fails to make me care about her arc about gaining confidence in her singing. Meredith (Chelsea Staub) literally has no reason to exist other than the movie requiring a blonde bitch villain worse than Tess from Camp Rock. The stakes she tries to cause with a USB key featuring photos of the girls and their 'dirty secrets' are honestly so ridiculous and insignificant that you can never take her seriously. Principal Dimly (Jon Voight) is her father who blindly follows his daughter's social segregation in the school. Given his real life far right views and Trump endorsement, that probably makes sense...and I'm not sure whether the filmmakers got him because Skyler Shaye happens to be his goddaughter or vice versa. Meredith's posse (Malese Jow & Anneliese van der Pol) also have no reason to exist and Cameron is delegated to a minor role as Cloe's love interest despite being close with the Bratz in the franchise. Yasmin's brother Manny is possibly the worst character as not only does he betray his sister with a video which has little to no significance, but keeps on trying to be 'cool and hip' while flirting with Meredith's ten year-old sister Cherish (who sums up the movie with its only line resembling humour) despite being a freshman high schooler. All the extras including the jocks, emos, geeks, cheerleaders, guys who like to wear dinosaur hats and mimes (because apparently you get them in high school) just remind the audience of why Mean Girls did a better job at arranging high schools cliques and showing how vapid they really are which this movie is never aware of. Is there one character worth caring about in this? Well...almost one, and that's Dylan, a deaf jock and Yasmin's love interest. So what's the problem with him? The writers botched it to the point you wonder whether they remembered he was supposed to be deaf after his first few scenes! I know it's implied he gradually lost his hearing as he still has an interest in music which he angsts about in one scene, but for the rest of the movie he can be boiled down to Yasmin's love interest while never being a love interest for her in the franchise. And is that wasn't bad enough, the acting is awful from everybody. They all look like they want to finish their takes as quickly as possible for an easy paycheck and to move on so they can find a way to redeem their careers afterwards. I don't know whether to feel sorry or contempt for all these actors for taking this tripe in the first place.

Songs: Yep, on top of the rest of the insanity onscreen, the filmmakers decided to add musical numbers. All they do is date the movie, slow it down and make the actors look more embarrassed than they already are. What makes this worse is they start appearing towards the start of the third act. Fabulous (no relation to the funner number from High School Musical 2) is Meredith's number during her Super Sweet 16 showing off how amazing she is to everyone making me question why she has friends. With an embarrassing rap interlude, ear grating autotuning and terrible choreography, it's one of those songs which feels like it's actively trying to make you cringe. It's All About Me is pretty much the same as Fabulous, except it heightens Meredith's egotistical vapidness to an obnoxious degree along with dating the movie with references to MySpace and MTV. Even when the audience in the movie is aware of its awfulness, it doesn't change that the filmmakers added it in the first place. How she won a plastic golden hatchet with it is beyond me. Bratitude is equally as obnoxious and annoying as it tries to shove the be yourself message down our throats when you just feel the corporate hollowness behind it. Oh, and one more thing, if you're going to dub actresses singing, at least get singers who sound like them! As for the soundtrack, it's astounding how many pop songs they cram into a scene to try & make you feel something that it rivals the Fifty Shades series. While the songs were popular for the time and better than anything else in the movie, the fact they added them in only makes me hate the film more. And for an extra laugh, check out My Life by The Slumber Party Girls. Believe me that its unintentional humour is funnier than anything else onscreen. 

This movie is poorly constructed in every conceivable way. The writing, plotting, characterisation, structure, acting, visuals, editing, songs and music editing are all garbage which deserves to be fed to the wolves and washed away by the sands of time. Seriously, just skip this and watch the movies it clearly took inspiration from i.e. Mean Girls, the Bring it On movies and the High School Musical movies. Even pretend games girls play with their dolls are better conceived than this trash. It's not even so bad it's hilarious, it's so bad that it's physically painful to watch. So if you'll excuse me, I just need to erase this from my memory so I can go and watch something that's easier on the eyes.
Story: 1/10
Visuals: 1/10
Characters: 1/10
Songs: 1/10
Overall: 1/10