This
is a generation built on nostalgia. Sequels to popular franchises are being
made to the public, TV shows are being revamped for a new audience, and a lot
of cartoons are being adapted onto the big screen. Whether they turn out good
or bad is up for debate. With the success of the “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe”
films, Hasbro found it fitting to adapt one of their girl targeted products,
such as “Jem.”
Now,
let me be perfectly clear: I didn’t grow up on “Jem.” For one, I was born in
1996, and by that time, my older siblings had left “Jem” to be a memory of the
past. It wasn’t until the days of the Internet, that I discovered the show as
one of those relics of the 80’s.
When
trailers for the film adaptation popped up, the internet exploded with hatred
from fans. Hardly anybody who was commenting on this film had anything good to
say about how the film looked, with it hardly resembling anything that the cartoon
was. I do agree with them that it looked nothing like from what little I had
seen of the cartoon, but I was kind of hoping the film could be fine on its own
as a stand-alone thing…boy howdy, was I wrong.
If
you have seen any rock band movie, you can expect almost all the clichés they
have to be in this film. The band getting picks up, the record dealer changing
their image, the lead singer forced to go solo, the band breaking up, etc. All
of those clichés are in this film, and they are so obvious and predictable that
it’s insulting.
Not only that, but the
pacing and cinematography are truly awful, feeling less like a movie and more
like a lazy documentary that was shot over the course of a week. There’s not a
single shot in this movie where the camera can just stay still for more than
one second, or allow the film to take a moment to breathe and let the
atmosphere settle in. Though I shouldn’t be too shocked at the film feeling
like a documentary, since this is directed by Jon M. Chu, the director of both
the Justin Beiber theatrical documentaries, “Never Say Never” and “Believe.”
I’d also like to point
out this film’s cheapness, both in its look and how it feels. For a film based
on a popular cartoon, you’d think they’d try to make it feel larger than life
and have a lot of effort put into it, but it doesn’t. It looks and feels like
it’s the pilot to a “Jem” live action series that somehow got a theatrical
release, much like with the new “Fantastic Four.” But what makes this film
worse than “Fantastic Four” is that this film resorts to comprising a majority
of its runtime to using footage from YouTube videos, all of which have NOTHING
to do with the movie at all. There was originally a contest set by the
director, saying that anyone who posts a video online talking about “Jem” and
what they love about it, will possibly star in the film. Of course, nobody got
chosen to star in the film, but instead a handful of them got cameos in the
film, which are the videos they posted. There was even a video that showed the “Jem”
cartoon playing in the background, IN THIS “Jem” MOVIE! Also, there are videos
that they use from Dwayne Johnson’s Instagram that talked about Taylor Swift’s “Bad
Blood,” Chris Pratt’s interview for “The Lego Movie” where he jokes about
dating “Jem,” and even “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” when he interviewed
Alicia Keys and they were talking about the cartoon.
This film was produced by
Jason Blum, who I am now dubbing this generation’s Roger Corman. Think about
it: he’s made a lot of low budget films, most of them horror, and he doesn’t
have to worry about the film bombing, because there’d be another success right
afterwards to make up for it. And for a $5 million film to bomb so hard, that it
didn’t even make half of its budget back, that’s got to tell something. Also,
I’d like to point out that it was kind of funny for this film to give out a
sequel beg at the mid-credits…a sequel that will never, EVER happen. It really
is sad, because the cast in this film does try their best to make this film
work, but for how stock and boring the script is, all their efforts feel
wasted.
If there had to be one
positive thing I could give this movie, just one thing…it would be the
soundtrack. I’m not kidding, for how lousy the film is, the songs are actually
pretty decent and the actors singing them do a fine job. They’re not the best
songs ever, but they’re nowhere near terrible. But even then, that’s not enough
to say that the film is good.
With how poorly this film
did, Universal took the film completely out of theaters after only two weeks,
making it the worst grossing film of 2015. It really is sad that it had to come
to that, but there wasn’t much else to do. But guys…it’s actually worth
checking out. I’m serious. It’s a marvel to see a film try so little that you
can’t help but be fascinated by what the film makers were thinking. This is
like “The Room” of rock band movies, it’s that kind of bad. So if you’re
interested in seeing possibly the worst adaptation of a cartoon you will ever
witness, give it a watch. But trust me, you’ll need friends to help you suffer
through it.
Rating: 1/10
No comments:
Post a Comment