Synopsis:
Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine) and Faith (Selena Gomez) have been best friends since grade school. They live together in a boring college dorm and are hungry for adventure. All they have to do is save enough money for spring break to get their shot at having some real fun. A serendipitous encounter with rapper "Alien" (James Franco) promises to provide the girls with all the thrill and excitement they could hope for. With the encouragement of their new friend, it soon becomes unclear how far the girls are willing to go to experience a spring break they will never forget.
Story:
The narrative of this movie is pretty simple, they went to spring break and and all hell breaks loose. In my opinion it is a good idea but the way it was handled in this movie was not good. Firstly, I was bored on how the story was told, basically it was one scene after another with almost no proper transition, it was like flashback then present time then more flashbacks, it became redundant which I hated. Although there was one flashback scene that I really liked and I was glad that they showed this because I was wondering how this scene happened previously.
Another thing that I didn't like is that the four lead characters does not have any common sense, yes they are going to party, yes there will be drugs and fornication present in this party and yet they were surprised when they got arrested. Surely it must have crossed in their mind that there will be a collateral damage (harsh word) or aftermath but no, they just keep thinking and saying they just wan to have fun, bleh. Maybe it's the way they are written, but I still didn't like it.
Acting:
Even though I didn't like the story of this movie, I have to give credit where it's due. Most of the cast in this movie did a great job, especially Ashley Benson, James Franco and to my surprise Vanessa Hudgens, normally I find her performance average at best, but in this one she was able to show that she can play a matured role that is very different from her field. James Franco was funny in this role, at first I didn't like it but after thinking of it, he did a pretty decent job at it. He was funny and at the same time threatening, he was clearly having fun in this role. As for Benson, I find her performance entertaining, she was fun and she managed to show off a threatening turn for the character.
What I didn't like here is the performances of Selena Gomez and Rachel Korine, they were bland and wooden in their performance, especially Selena Gomez who just came off as an irritating brat.
Music:
I liked the music in this one, it fits well to the movie and it made a lot of sense. In addition I would like to say that Britney Spears became a little relevant once again, thanks to this movie.
Cinematography:
This is one aspect that I really loved in this movie, the neon colors, the close-up shots and little amounts of shaky cam. For me these are great combos which made the movie fun to look at, the shots in here was also good and was able to show the nature of a Spring Break party.
Direction:
The only thing that I liked in Harmony Korine's direction is the way he directed his actors (excluding Korine and Gomez). He was able to bring out a performance from them that I have never seen before in the actors, and that is a good point in this movie. As for the pacing, it was a little slow and like I said before some of it became redundant.
Overall:
'Spring Breakers' is aiming to display how teenagers today act but in the end it didn't achieve that as it was only able to show to stupidity of those people and not the behavior of those people as a whole. I really wanted to like this movie as I though it was something special but unfortunately I didn't. I give this movie a 1.5/5
Favorite line:
"I'm Alien. My real name is Al, but truth be told, I'm not from this planet." -Alien (James Franco)
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