Bratz was released in the United States on August 3, 2007, by Lionsgate. It was universally panned by critics and audiences alike, having received five nominations at the 28th Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. It was also a commercial failure, grossing only $26 million worldwide against a $20 million budget, failing to break even.[3]
Plot
Yasmin, Cloe, Sasha and Jade are four teenage best friends and are about to start their freshman year of high school together in Los Angeles. There, Meredith Baxter Dimly, a rich, popular and extremely controlling student body president, wants everyone to belong to a clique, and goes about organizing students. However, Meredith dislikes the independent spirit of the four girls and automatically knows they are trouble to her plans, plotting to ruin their friendship and make them conform to her prefabricated cliques.
Cloe is a soccer player and meets Cameron, whom she instantly develops a crush, distancing herself from her friends. Sasha is recruited as a cheerleader and joins the cheerleading squad. Jade joins the science club, then meets Dexter and discovers a passion for fashion design. Yasmin joins the journalism club, but later decides to focus on singing before she meets Dylan, a popular yet laid-back jock, who is deaf but can lip read, who misses being able to listen to music. Though the girls try to make time for each other, they are all busy with their own respective interests and new friends. The friends begin to drift apart as they are compelled to stay within their cliques due to Meredith's plans.
Two years later, an accidental food fight causes them to get detention for breaking Principal Dimly's statue after Meredith sent her pet dog, Paris, to attack Cloe from flirting with Cameron. The girls realize that they miss being close friends and decide to recover that connection. They also try to get the other schoolmates to socialize outside their cliques. However, the girls find out they are not invited to Meredith's second "Super Sweet 16" birthday party.
Meredith tries blackmailing the girls by using an embarrassing photo to have them quit a talent show. This results in her plans to backfire with everyone else's secrets being revealed publicly. This idea brings all the cliques together again, and the girls perform an elaborate musical number. Meredith's constantly attempts to steal the spotlight. In the end, there is a tie. Meredith gets the trophy, but the girls win the talent show and they decide to give Cloe the scholarship. They are offered an appearance at a red carpet gala by an MTV vice president, while Meredith and her father Principal Dimly attempts to foil the girls' attempts but fails.
Cast
Nathalia Ramos as Yasmin, a Bratz member with a passion for singing.
Skyler Shaye as Cloe, a Bratz member and a soccer player.
Logan Browning as Sasha, a Bratz member and a cheerleader.
Janel Parrish as Jade, a Bratz and science club member with a passion for fashion design.
Chelsea Staub as Meredith Baxter Dimly, a rich and popular mean girl.
Additionally, director Sean McNamara makes a cameo appearance as Tom McShavie, the Vice President of MTV Networks. Producer Avi Arad also makes an uncredited cameo appearance as one of the talent show judges. Jerad Anderson plays Jonas Johnson, a member of the football team, while Lee Reherman plays the Vice Principal Sludge. Daniel Booko appears as a jock, and Susie Singer Carter as Barbara Baxter Dimly.
Production
Paula Abdul was dropped from the production before completion while working on American Idol. She was originally enlisted to provide wardrobe designs, choreograph the film, executive-produce, as well as hold a role in the film. This was revealed on Hey Paula, her reality show on her personal life.[5]
Susie Singer Carter also wrote and produced the film for Lionsgate but lost her credit in a Writers Guild arbitration, then her name appears as screenwriter on the final movie poster.[6]
Bratz was universally panned by critics and audiences alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a rating of 10% with an average score of 3.7/10, based on 80 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Full of mixed messages and dubious role-models, Bratz is too shallow even for its intended audience."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 21 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[10][11]
Worst Screen Couple for "Any combination of two totally airheaded characters" (lost to Lindsay Lohan ("as the yang to her own yin") in I Know Who Killed Me)
Worst Remake or Rip-off ("a rip-off if there ever was one") (lost to I Know Who Killed Me)
Box office
Bratz grossed $10 million in North America and $16 million in other territories for a total gross of $26 million.[3]
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $4.2 million, finishing in 10th at the box office, ultimately making it a box office bomb.
A film soundtrack entitled Bratz: Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on July 31, 2007, through Geffen Records. The soundtrack featured music from artists such as Ashlee Simpson, Dropping Daylight, and the Black Eyed Peas. Three singles were released prior to the album's release, "Rainy Day" by Janel Parrish, "Rockstar" by Prima J, and "Fearless" by Daechelle.
Sales for the soundtrack were good and the album remained on the Billboard 200 charts for three weeks, peaking during its second week at position 83.[12]Common Sense Media gave the soundtrack three stars, writing that "With heavy-hitting help from the Black Eyed Peas, The Slumber Party Girls, Ashlee Simpson, Dropping Daylight, and Lifehouse, these young performers gamely negotiate some very ordinary-sounding, preachy material and make the songs sparkle anyway."[13] The 9th track on the album, "Out from Under", was later covered by Britney Spears on her 6th studio album Circus.
A video game adaptation of the film entitled Bratz 4 Real was released to the Nintendo DS and Windows on November 5, 2007. The game was published by THQ.
The game's plot mirrored that of the film and players are tasked with completing goals and errands in order to progress the story along. The DS version of the game also allowed users to design their own clothes patterns, care for a digital pet, and play various mini-games. The Windows version also utilized mini-games, but excluded the option for players to design clothing or raise a digital pet. In both games users could play as one of the four main characters and view clips from the film.
Reception
Pocket Gamer heavily criticized the game and stated that it felt that it was released too early and that "There are some nice ideas at play, in particular where it attempts to break down the social barriers that beset children in secondary education, but as a game it's far too vacuous to recommend."[15]IGN shared similar sentiments, writing that "Bratz 4 Real does some work to recast the shallow, self-absorbed Bratz girls in a more redeeming light, using them and their friendship to tell a tale of unity and breaking down social barriers. But whereas that premise and the game's compelling customization options prove to be solid positive points for this package, Bratz 4 Real is still a game brought down by a variety of other oddities."[16]
^"Bratz". Metacritic. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
^Kilday, Gregg (August 7, 2007). "Uni's 'Ultimatum' accepted: No. 1 open". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on December 7, 2022. Retrieved January 18, 2022. though its target audience did award it a grade of B-plus.
