Starring: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson
Directed by: Harmony Korine
Language: English
Rating: R
Running Time: 94 minutes
I wasn't really interested in seeing this movie, until I saw a review on Pretty Much It. Their response to this movie was surprising and it tempted me to check it out for myself.
Faith, Brit, Candy, and Cotty are bored of college life and are ready to go wild for spring break. The only problem is that they lack the funds to take the trip they want to Florida. Brit, Candy, and Cotty devise a plan to rob a restaurant for the money and the girls enjoy their time in Florida together.
If you're expecting to see former Disney starlets being topless, then this movie is not for you. Sorry, semi-pedos, but you will be sorely disappointed in the lack of nudity from Selena and Vanessa. Now that that's out of the way, I didn't know what to expect from this movie completely. I had to re-read the plot of the story a few times for it to stick in my head, before watching it. I must admit the first few minutes didn't look that promising. Beer, boobs, and dubstep: the essentials of spring break in 2013. I honestly thought this would be quite trashy, especially seeing a "thugged out" James Franco on the cover, but I wasn't going to stop the movie just yet. After the off putting introduction, the movie calms down, becomes a little more experimental visually, and takes a slightly more serious approach, despite the characters being bit lewd with non-verbal sex jokes.
The story could be viewed as simple, but somewhat deep. This might seem like a simple spring break movie with a bunch of girls in bikinis party hopping and doing the supposedly stereotypical college shenanigans (i.e. drinking, drugs, and sex), but this movie ends up being something more. The situation isn't overly complicated, but it is a conflict that isn't typical in these types of movies. From what I read and what I see, this could be viewed as a fantasy of taking risks to provide a good time and perhaps good memories with your closest friends.
The acting was pretty good. It wasn't something to get too detailed about, but a few characters were a bit laughable in the portrayals. I believe it was supposed to be that way though such as James Franco as Alien, a rapper and drugs and arms dealer. It's exaggerated, but it isn't annoying or out of place for this sort of movie. What I really liked about the movie is the way it is shot and edited. The movie has a nice balance of giving the audience that typical spring break feeling of excess and scandal, but also deals out a hand of danger and consequence. It also has this artistic, experimental feeling with colors to separate both atmospheres and music. One example of this balance is a scene with the girls and Alien at a poolside piano singing Britney Spears' "Everytime".
It's hard to give this movie the praise it deserves without ruining the movie. Aside from what I said previously about what I like about this movie, it was nice to have some sort of consequence for the characters whether they're satisfying or not to the audience, I've seen way too many movies where characters do bad things and they don't receive any type of punishment. This movie does deserve its R rating and some of the dialogue is quite laughable and unnecessary, but those things don't take away too much from my enjoyment of the movie.
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