Bratz: The Movie

Bratz (also known as Bratz: The Movie) is a 2007 American musical comedy film based on the cartoon characters and dolls of the same name. The film stars Logan Browning, Janel Parrish, Nathalia Ramos, Skyler Shaye, Chelsea Kane, Jon Voight, Annelise van der Pol and Malese Jow.

Plot

Four best friends start high school. Each one is unique and likes their own thing. When the Student Body President Meredith, sees this she automatically knows they are trouble. Eventually though Cloe joins the soccer team , Sasha joins the cheerleading squad, Jade is part of the science club, and Yasmin is an outcast. After years of not talking to each other Jade and Yasmin speak a few words in the restroom but Yasmin doesn't have the courage to tell Jade she misses her. Then the four girls are reunited when they are sent to detention for causing a food fight. After the girls are reunited they find out they are not invited to a huge party given by Meredith Then Cloe finds out that her mom got a job serving food at the party. They are forced to work for Meredith Then at the party Meredith decides to expose Yasmin's secret which is her dancing and singing with a face mask. Then Yasmin's brother starts doing a dance and then everybody joins in and Meredith is humiliated. When Meredith accidentally gets thrown into the pool she calls the four best friends "bratz." The girls then decide to be part of the talent show to win a scholarship. Meredith is always the one who wins but the "bratz" are prepared to take her down. But when Meredith finds she threatens Yasmin by telling her that if she continued preparing for the show she would expose her friends secrets. Yasmin decides to call everything off. At the end the girls still do the talent show and they tell everybody there secrets who turn out not to be so bad. The girls win and they each end up with their crushes. The girls decide to give Cloe the scholarship. The movie ends with the girls walking down a red carpet.

Why It Sucks

Very poor grasp of the source material.
Predictable and clichéd plot.
Very poor acting, especially from Logan Browning, Nathalia Ramos and Skyler Shaye.
None of the jokes are funny.
Unlikeable and stereotypical characters.
- Dylan doesn't seem deaf and there's a pointless subplot with him learning to be a DJ.
- Yasmin doesn't display any signs of hispanic and we also don't see her doing journalism. Her singing voice is very nasal and whiny.
- The film represent more of middle school than high school.
- There are also cliques that don't exist in real-life schools like Mimes.
- Meredith is a generic daddy's girl and alpha bitch.
Terrible musical numbers that makes Friday by Rebecca Black sound good.
Forgettable moments.
Pointless scenes and montages (especially Meredith's Super Sweet 16 Party and the Bratz being grown apart from each other) completley serves no purpose to the movie other than padding.
Poor CGI, one example is where Jade does a lab experiment and fireworks came out.
In the scenes where Cloe plays soccer and riding a moped, they could have had used a stunt double for her because it doesn't look like her.
The logic makes no sense whatsoever.
It stole a lot of elements from Mean Girls and High School Musical. Which were a lot better than this.
Sexual and confusing messages.

Redeeming Qualities

Decent soundtrack.
Colorful visuals.
The costumes look gorgeous.
Janel Parrish gives a decent and tolerable performance.

Reception

Bratz was universally panned by critics, movie goers and fans of the dolls alike. It got a 9% rating on rotten tomatoes, based on 78 reviews, with an average rating 3/10. The site's critical consensus, "Full of mixed messages and dubious role-models, Bratz is too shallow even for its intended audience."

Bratz grossed as half of their budget in North America and $16 million in foreign countries. the film grossed $4.2 million dollars during opening weekend, finishing in 10th at the box office, making the film a box office bomb.

The film got nominated for five Razzie Awards. But lost them all to I Know Who Killed Me and Norbit.

It spawned a movie game which is just as bad as the film itself. As well as another one despite having the same title it follows the tv show instead which also bad.

Trivia

The original idea is for an animated film.
Paula Abdul was originally hired as the film's Executive Producer, Fashion Designer, and Dance Choreographer. During an episode of her reality television series Hey Paula (2007), she received an e-mail on her Blackberry firing her from this movie.
As Janel Parrish was an experienced singer, she was the only actress who actually sang when the opportunity arose. The rest were coached on lip-synching to prepare for their musical numbers.
Nathalia Ramos was fifteen-years-old when this movie was filmed, and she had to go back and forth between schoolwork and shooting scenes.
Skyler Shaye and Anneliese van der Pol were the only cast members who were not teenagers during production.
Film debut of actresses: Janel Parrish, Logan Browning, Nathalia Ramos, Chelsea Kane, Malese Jow, and Anneleise van der Pol.
Skyler Shaye is Jon Voight's god daughter and this was her 2nd time working with him since Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.
Nathalia Ramos (Yasmin) was fifteen-years-old when this movie was filmed, and she had to go back and forth between schoolwork and shooting scenes.
One of the freshman students that walks up to Meredith's lunchroom booth is wearing a Punisher t-shirt. This film was distributed by Lionsgate, who also distributed The Punisher (2004) live-action film starring Thomas Jane.
It was once rumored that it was not screened for critics.