‘Bratz’: Old twist
to a new film

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

If the names Yasmin, Cloe, Jade and Sasha don’t ring a bell, then you’re probably not the intended audience for Bratz.
However, lots of people have heard of them, as evidenced by the hundreds of girls who waited in line at the Franklin Mills mall a few weeks ago for a preview screening, not to mention the actresses who happily came on board to portray the characters on the big screen.
Bratz is the second movie this summer to be based on a line of toys. I sincerely doubt this movie will do anywhere near the business of Transformers. Nevertheless, it opens Friday with high hopes.
Sean McNamara (director of the ill-performing Hilary Duff movie, Raise Your Voice, and TV’s That’s So Raven) has a lot of experience with the ’tween genre. Dress some good-looking teenage girls in fancy clothes, make them sing and dance, toss a little peril their way — that seems to be the formula.
This review of Bratz is not for the ’tweens who love the dolls, which are scantily clad competitors of Barbie dolls. This review is for the parents who may be wondering if the movie is appropriate for their daughters, and if they’ll find it more entertaining than a root canal.
I did a Google search of "Bratz" and some of the most popular online material includes video of Paula Abdul’s meltdown upon being fired from the production, as well as news articles discussing the sketchy nature of the dolls, which have been seen wearing fishnets, miniskirts and stilettos.
The Bratz movie itself is completely free of this sort of controversy. Bratz is a high school comedy focusing on four girls who are BFFs (best friends forever). It’s moderately entertaining, even though much of the material seems to have been snatched from better movies.
Four unknown and extremely perky young women play the lead roles of Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos), Cloe (Skyler Shaye), Jade (Janel Parrish) and Sasha (Logan Browning). The girls have been friends all their lives, but find themselves growing apart in high school.
Carry Nation High’s resident "mean girl" and the principal’s daughter, Meredith (Chelsea Staub), rules the school and is intent on separating the girls into various cliques — the cheerleaders, soccer players and science geeks, to name a few.
It works for a while, but after not speaking to each other for two years, the girls spend an afternoon in detention and reconnect. They decide Meredith’s cliques shouldn’t run the school, and, of course, the only way to fight back is by beating her at her game.
Bratz is innocent fun. There’s the obligatory messy food fight. The characters all come from diverse backgrounds, but their cultures, unfortunately, are a little too stereotypical here. Yasmin, a girl of Latina heritage, incorporates some Spanish dialogue at random times, and there’s a woman (possibly her mother, but it’s never established) whom she likes to eat with and sing La Cucaracha. Jade, a Eurasian (half-Asian, half-white) girl, must live up to the rigorous academic standards of her strict parents. Cloe is a blonde-haired girl with a single mom who struggles to get by. Sasha is an African-American girl with divorced parents.
Bratz is an unfortunate hybrid of Clueless, Mean Girls and a little bit of Legally Blonde. If high-school theme movies are your thing, I’d suggest you do yourself a favor and just rent Clueless and Mean Girls. But if you’re dragged along to Bratz by a doll-toting daughter, look at the bright side. It’s less than two hours of your time. ••
Movie Grade: B-