Bratz: Starrin' & Stylin'

Bratz: Starrin & Stylin is a 2004 animated direct-to-video film that was produced by CineGroupe and released on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film's rights is now owned by Lionsgate and it can now be found on digital online streaming on Vudu and digital download on iTunes.

Synopsis

The film stars Bratz characters Cloe, Yasmin, Sasha and Jade, along with Cameron and Dylan, and Dana, Meygan, Nerva, Cade, Ethan, and Koby. The group of girls are getting ready for prom night.

Just as prom night was approaching, their art teacher, Mr. Del Rio, decided to assign them to a project where they have to express themselves. Asked by the girls to give them extra time for the project, the professor denied the girls' petition, thus presenting them with a dilemma: Get prepared for prom night, or make a project that will count for 25 percent of their yearly grade.

They each have different talents; Yasmin likes literature, Cloe likes art and drawing, Sasha likes music, and Jade likes fashion. Because of that, they decided to borrow a school video camera, so that they can express their creative sides together by shooting a video and explaining their points of view about the types of things they enjoy and like.

A relaxing day at the beach seems only to stress out Sasha, who has volunteered to be the school's prom committee and chairperson. Problems begin to arise when Sasha is insulted in the school's newspaper column, "Daily Doings", which had a reputation of being the paper's most boring column. The girls automatically blame Cameron and Dylan for telling the "Daily Doings" writer about the girls' conversation at the beach previously. During the drive, Cloe crashes her car, and Cameron, an expert mechanic, comes to fix it.

When the girls go shopping for prom outfits, Jade begins to doubt her own sense of fashion when she picks out an outrageous outfit the others disapprove of. More gossip appears in the paper, and it's an article about Jade. The girls figure it was not the boys because there's no way they could have heard about Jade's meltdown at the mall. So, at Cloe's sleepover, things seem to be getting back to normal for the girls; they finally apologize to Cameron while he tells Cloe about the repairs, and give him an unforgettable makeover to make up for their accusations. Later on that night, Jade accidentally leaves the video camera on and someone can be seem walking around the room writing in a notepad.

At school, everyone is going crazy over the picture of Cameron after the makeover the girls gave him. He blames Cloe for his embarrassing photo, telling her to pick up her car because he's not going to the prom after what happened.

Tension rises between the girls as they try to figure out which one of them has been betraying their secrets to the whole school. As it turned out, it was Yasmin who was writing the columns, as a ghost writer. When she confesses to the rest of the girls, they get mad at her and begin to ignore her. The girls try to forget about Yasmin by going to the spa, but then realize what a terrible time they are having without her. They also admit that they were the ones who had given her the idea to write more interesting stories, since they were discontent with the last ones.

When Yasmin returns, however, she apologizes, explaining that people used to comment that her column was boring, and that, after she spread gossip about people around school, those who knew she was the ghost writer made her feel important. Her friends apologize to her in return for their own commits and they forgive each other. Cameron forgives Yasmin after she explains the whole thing to him.

On prom night, another series of problems arise, such as the hired cooks not arriving on time due to a traffic jam, the photographer quitting to become a painter, and the DJ being home sick with a fever. Just when all hope was lost, the girls come up with a plan for a do-it-yourself prom. Each of the girls got an opportunity to put their artistic talents on display; they solved the latest problems by making a disco ball work, setting up balloons everywhere, using their video camera to take digital pictures, preparing their own food, playing their own music, and turning an empty room into a "stylin" dance hall. Jade is then elected prom queen.

After their video, which included the prom night dance, was shown to their art professor, he gave the four girls an A-plus on their project.

Criticism

Reviewer Colin Jacobson said: "If you watch Season Four of The Simpsons, you’ll find a great episode in which Bart and Lisa write Itchy and Scratchy shorts. They eventually get an award nomination, and they go up against an episode of Action Figure Man called "How to Buy Action Figure Man". That’s how I felt as I watched Bratz. From start to finish, the show demonstrated absolutely no reason to exist other than to push products. The paper-thin plot exists for one reason: to put the girls in as many situations - and as many outfits - as possible. All those situations and outfits exist for one reason: to showcase all of the totally awesome toys the target audience can immediately go out and purchase.....From the predictable and bland plot to the one-dimensional characters to the stiff and unappealing animation, this flick was a total dud." ^[1]

References

1. ↑ Jacobson, Carl (2004-07-30). "Bratz: Starrin' And Stylin' (2004)". DVD Movie Guide. Retrieved 2009-11-16. 

External links

• DVFverdict review
• Entertainment.kaboose review
• Digitallyobsessed review
• NYTimes review
• epinions review