Spring Breakers (R)

“Spring Breakers” is cinematically pretty for a music video. Some of the effects are visually appealing. And who doesn’t love gratuitous sex, nudity, and drug and alcohol abuse on a beautiful Florida beach backdrop, right? Except no one told Director Harmony Korine that this wasn’t a music video, it is a movie. And in movies, we require something of a plot. No, wait, that is not fair to music videos. I have seen some music videos with a better thought-out plot than this turd. It is abundantly clear within the first ten minutes that this movie is basically an excuse for Harmony to film his wife Rachel getting down with other dudes and chicks and completely getting blasted. Even though technically the only actual sex scene that is filmed in the movie is a scene where Ashley Benson and Vanessa Hudgins effectively mouth rape James Franco with a pistol.

While on the subject of sexual appetites, thanks, Harmony for effectively destroying my lady boner for James Franco. I will never again be able to look at him in ANYTHING without seeing this creepy performance and hearing the equally creepy rendition of Britney Spears’ “Every time.” It is very easy to say, though, that he absolutely is the best part of the film. He does not go for the standard formula for choosing his roles, of that we can be sure. He does give his all in every performance and even his character ‘Alien’ is at least well-acted if not a character who makes you cringe. I am at least hoping that was Harmony’s intention.

I am also hoping this film was meant to be social commentary about how we are desensitizing our youth to violence in general, and making our young women ill prepared to face the predators that may be out there. It might even be said this film is a breakout role for Selena Gomez to establish herself as a “grown woman.”  I don’t feel this is accurate though. Even though three of the four young ladies have played traditionally safe roles in family shows and films, I don’t feel they’ve done enough to establish themselves as actresses with these roles. Selena gets to do drugs on camera, but runs home at the first sign of trouble. Rachel is only complicit is some illegal activity, but is never really seen causing any harm to anyone and she, too, realizes the error of her ways.

The part of this movie that really scares me is Ashley and Vanessa’s performances. Both have broken out of their “teen queen” status in previous roles (Ashley on a weekly basis on ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars” and Vanessa with “Sucker Punch”), so this film does nothing to further their range. They must have seen something in these roles I do not. These girls accost a dinner full of people they probably know, since they are obviously in Small Town America, burn the car of one of their professors, consume copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, and then proceed to murder a mansion full of people, despite the fact that they have never shot real guns before and they are going up against actual “gangsters” who would theoretically have way more experience than these girls put together.

I don’t understand how these roles, as they are written, are meant to be cautionary since they basically win at life in this scenario. If this film were, say, “Grand Theft Auto St. Petersburg Edition,” then they would have broken the game. They committed every offense possible, without too much interference from the authorities. [SPOILER] The end of the movie shows them returning home in a stolen Lamborghini with, presumably, all of Alien’s money since they were able to alleviate themselves of his presence.

The performances given by the top billed in this movie were satisfactory, if not good. However, there is nothing resembling believability in the writing in this film and I don’t think the plot can be found with a flashlight and a pair of tweezers. After spending the dollar something at red box to rent this, and the hour and a half watching it, I found myself screaming, “I want my money and life back!!!” at the television, quite literally. I had to cleanse my palate with a nice fresh round of “Game of Thrones.” To those who claim this is going to be a “cult classic,” I pity our future if people who love this film become the dictators of “classic” anything.

– by Justine Moore