Viewed – 09 April 2013  Cinema

Now this was a unique visit to my local multiplex!  The movie starts … large, brash colored letters for the title, then a big, loud montage of spring break, complete with ample close-ups of breasts, girls in bikinis  more breasts, pert bottoms, drunk guys spraying water on, yes you guessed it, more breasts – and the tone of this particular movie had been set.  Now I am no prude, but when in a fairly occupied theater, ogling some bouncing boobies actually made me feel a bit of a perv.  So thankfully there is a bit more to this than tits and ass (almost).

Squeaky clean TV favorite Selena Gomez is part of a clique of girls dreaming of joining everyone on some resort in Florida for Spring Break.  Only trouble is they don’t have enough money.  So do these girls get a summer job to pay for it?  No, how about holding up a diner wearing balaclavas and using water pistols?  Job done!  This is a pop-video on steroids kind of viewing experience, filled to overflowing with rapid editing, experimental camera work, video-effects and loud pounding dance music that has no actual tune other than thump thump thump.  Directed by relatively unknown Harmony Korine this feels more like an extended YouTube montage than a movie, loving to repeat lines, sounds, images etc to the point of nausea   Acting-wise the young cast of pretty-little-things (including Vanessa Hudgens) did a good job with limited material, and current hot-property James Franco made a memorable appearance as a blinged-out Gangsta-rapper who gets involved with the girls and leads them steadily off the rails.

I think what this movie was going for was the tried and tested ‘innocence shattered’ message with all the free-loving excess brought down to earth with a bump.  Only problem was it took a very long time to get there, and even from this male perspective, all that flesh got boring very quickly.  I think there might be a very interesting movie hidden away in there somewhere  and some of the imagery, use of songs to convey the ideas was fairly well done – just a shame the movie cared little about such things, in favor of another tit shot.

Verdict:  2 /5

Related articles

• Spring Breakers Movie Review (shockya.com)
• Spring Break Forever (heypoofy.wordpress.com)
• O.c. X Spring Breakers (aleatherboundjournal.com)