Review of Jem and the Holograms (2015) by Jake G — 04 Jun 2017

For anyone whom grew up in the 1980's it was a time of pure nostalgia. There was without a doubt of amazing weekly and Saturday morning cartoon flicks that started a huge chain reaction for pop culture. My all time favorite was "Masters of the Universe".

By the mid to late 80's came a USA network Hasbro series titled "Jem and the holograms". Even with all its campiness, it was very enjoyable for me along with my two siblings Jon and Pamela Guerra. Now here in the mid teens after nearly seventeen years we finally get a movie (this was not long awaited or anticipated) from what I can tell you about the film is this from the start, it does not deserve all the hatred that it so strongly received and I will touch on as much as I can in my review.

Now I could touch on a lot of things about this film in comparisson to the cartoon, but I wont as this I feel is unnecessary. In this film we have Jem aka Jericha Benton portrayed in her mid to late teens. Her sister (Kimber) recognizes her talent and gift for music and decides with her other fellow musicians to sync her toon up to YouTube to see what kind of response she gets. Jerrica's presence and creativity are hugely received and she gets thousands of hits so much that a major outfit seeks to label her with their company, enter "Starlight Foundation". the current owner of Starlight Foundation played by Juliette Lewis is very intrigued by the talent of Jericca and signs her onto a contract along with her sister and friend to create a larger than life singing group. During this time jericah aka Jem discoverers a piece of artificial intelligence that her father has left behind for her (synergy). it was through Synergy he was able to communicate one last time with his daughter in hopes that she would grow into a mature responsible and strong adult. At this point I could continue on with the story but I think I will end it here as not to give away too much if you are someone who is wanting to see this film and has not had the chance.

Something that I want to mention here is the fact that this film has a lot of heart to it. not once did I hear any cuss word or any mention of the lord's name taken in vain.

Now comes the part where we talk about the problems that potential Fanboys and Fangirls have with this film especially if they are die-hard fans (which I was not); however I did like the cartoon but keep in mind the cartoon is very campy and as you watch it today it's really silly, but still I enjoy watching the cartoon and it is not to be taken too seriously something that a lot of these fans of the cartoon tend to do.

The original Jem character was in her early twenties this is not the case in this movie Jem is clearly in her mid-teens to late teens. the original cartoon had them setting up an orphanage where they took in a lot of kids and helped raise funds for this particular orphanage by singing it is during this time that Jem discovers that her father left her "Synergy" which was an artificial intelligent woman hologram that is able to make things happen for Jem such as creating clothing and cars, this is clearly not the case in this movie as the movie focuses more on reality that tugs at the heart for any child whom lost her father at an early age. the owner of Starlight Foundation in the cartoon was Eric Raymond (a man) this time it is betrayed as a woman "Juliette Lewis". one of the biggest complaints that fans have with this film is that the music sucks that the girls are supposed to be punk rockers my question to them is have they even seen the cartoon series recently? Clearly when you're watching the series these girls may look like punk rockers but they don't sing like one as is the case in this film. Another case is the fact that these girls are terrible actors well that may be the case; however it wasn't so abundant in this film or for that matter I couldn't tell as I did not care, and from what I can tell you of my viewpoint this is not the case. the acting isn't strong enough but it is decent and the main character of Jem betrayed by "Peeples" was honestly good enough.

If you were a fan of the 1980s cartoon but not hardcore (like I was) then you will definitely enjoy this film and what it has to offer. My viewpoint is that most likely girls from ages 5 to 17 will enjoy this flick without a doubt and we could see a lot more girls walking around with pink hair and pink makeup LOL!.

Jem and the Holograms is in no way a A+ film or a 5-star rating, I did enjoy watching it and I do recommend it to any Jem fan, but in no way does this film deserve the bashing that it received from critics and Fanboys of all kinds.

Jem and the Holograms was a Universal picture that costed $5000000 to make and windup only making 2.5 million at the box office if they had Marketed the film more than they did left it in the theater for more than 2 weeks something different may have come from this outcome. You know that they're building up for a sequel because in the very end you see Erica Raymond create the band The Misfits as a counter to Jem and the Holograms. it would have been really cool to see Pizzazz go up against Jem in a singing competition.

None the less this is something we will probably not see Universal Pictures pulled the movie in October of 2015 after a two-week run at the box office, kind of funny because nobody pulled Dungeons & Dragons back in 2001 which stayed in the box office for one month but was extremely horrid.

If you get a chance check out Jem and the Holograms I can't say it's worth spending $15 but it's definitely worth watching.