Born Movie Reviews

Movie Review written by: Born Movie Reviews

RT Critics Rating: 6.4/10

Born Movie Reviews' Rating: 6/10

I know what you are thinking, and I know why you want to go see it. Without spoiling you, the film literally begins with the song "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" by Skrillex, and within five minutes, we already see female asses and female breasts, all explicitly shown in your face. If you are coming to see it for bikini cheesecake, sure you will get it, but the point that I am trying to get across is that Spring Breakers surprisingly offers a bit more.

Spring Breakers tells the story of four college girls (Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine) during their spring break, alone on campus because they do not have enough money to afford a vacation. To obtain the funds, they rob a restaurant, and end up traveling to Florida to attend the wildest and most reckless times of their lives. After a raunchy party, they find themselves arrested but bailed out by Alien, a rapper and gangster (James Franco), who takes them to a world where the line of fun and wrong gets crossed.

The film is interestingly edited, for it jumps between scenes that take place at different times, and as the film progresses, it jumps to new scenes in the middle of the timeline to reveal more details in the story. The style of transition is unique and abrupt, and the shots are shot close and shaky with a plethora of lights in the frame, almost as if the film is giving you an experience of what being drunk and high is like. It may be annoying for some, like me for example, but it is still an eye-opener that Spring Breakers took the time to present itself like this.

Remember that awkward feeling you had when you find out that most of the girls came from the Disney channel? To be honest, they were all really good here. In fact, my favorite performance of the four is Selena Gomez as the innocent member of the group. Although the dialogue in this script stinks like alcohol breath, all the actors delivered in what they were given. By the way, watch out for James Franco's performance. He is actually hilarious and quite likable in this film, and is a huge detour away from something like Oz the Great and Powerful or 127 Hours. You wouldn't think Franco can do this kind of role. Believe me, he can do it.

As mentioned before, Spring Breakers offers a little bit more than it seems. This is because the film offers social commentary while being a cocktease for all the males in the audience. However, to be very truthful, I was not one bit teased, because the film sort of presented these seductive images in very "wrong" ways that instead of finding the film sexy, I found it scary -- that there are real people in the world who behave like characters in this film.

The film could have taken more time to push its social commentary, for it is the main component that makes this film worth watching. Its theme is deeply philosophical, but it never even scraped that surface. As for the plot and narrative of the film, it does end very abruptly, in the fashion where you might say "That's it?" at the end. For me, I was indeed disappointed because the film was only 93 minutes when it could have added in an extra half hour to push its theme to the audience. If the theme was successfully pushed, then Spring Breakers could have become one of the most important films about society today.

In conclusion, Spring Breakers does have more substance than it advertised, but at the end of the day, it could have been a lot better in what it had. It chose the right direction, but didn't go down the road far enough, and in the end, I was disappointed. However, the very fact that the film tries to be more than it is impresses me, and the filmmaking here is fairly respectable in terms of these seductive crime films. The script is not that great, but the acting is largely admirable. If you want to see Spring Breakers for the sake of seeing hot nude chicks, go ahead, but please see if you can get the social commentary out of it. For me, the themes stayed in my head longer than the breasts did.