Review of Jem and the Holograms (2015) by Cristina N — 10 Nov 2015

The trailer killed this movie. It alienated old fans like myself and didn't have enough appeal for new fans. I actually went and saw it anyway with the lowest expectations ever of a film and while I felt that the franchise got a head of itself in setting up a sequel (which I'm sure we will never see now ) that looks to be more in line with the Jem story, instead of honoring it in this version, there was still a lot of good stuff here.

The songs were poppy and fun, the cinematography was surprisingly thoughtful and there was a lot of heart in the story. The script was a little wonky and couldn't decide if it wanted to be the action/ adventure side of Jem or something else.

Some of the changes (like making Rio the son of "erica raymond") didn't seem necessary and it would have been more interesting to stick with the source material a little more closely. Structurally (and I say this with my MFA in Screenwriting) it was pretty sound, the beats were there, they just weren't always the right ones.

I am sad that we won't see the second film which would have most likely featured The Misfits and honored the wacky action / adventure side of the cartoon, but this is why you put all the good stuff like that into the first script, never save anything for the sequel.