‘Jem and the Holograms’ Review: Rock of all ages

“Pop music will never be lowbrow.” By operation of logic and if we follow Lady Gaga’s wisdom, films that have pop music as its heart and soul will also never be lowbrow.

Unfortunately, the films that celebrate musicians whose works can be regarded as within the realm of pop have all the makings of so-called lowbrow entertainment, of charm that has fan service as their primary concern. Documentaries like Jon M. Chu’s Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011), Morgan Spurlock’s One Direction: This is Us (2013), Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz’s Katy Perry: Part of Me (2015) are all lacking the purpose and intent required to turn them into anything other than self-serving portraits of musicians rising to popularity for various reasons. 

Wonder and caprice

Jem and the Holograms, directed by Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’s Chu, takes a familiar approach in its reimagining of the mythos of Hasbro’s ’80s animated show about a regular girl who transforms into a glam rocker with the help of holograms.

It pretends that Jem and her backup band are part of the same world that celebrates Gaga, Bieber, Perry and the boys of One Direction. It grants them the same origin story, of starting from obscurity and humility to international renown. The only and most important difference here is that Chu and screenwriter Ryan Landels are relieved of the burden of servicing a rabid fan base, which grants them the opportunity to explore the psychology of post-American Idol pop in all its wonder and caprice.

 

 

The film opens with Jerrica (a very endearing Aubrey Peeples) talking about multiple identities in a world consumed by online profiles and instantaneous internet fame. As she nonchalantly essays her thoughts on the subject, the film displays random videos seemingly source from YouTube, in an effort to place Jerrica’s words within a world outside the fiction of the cartoon. 

Dose of currency

The effect of the opening is quite exciting. At once, Chu was able to remove the crutch of nostalgia from the material and inject into it a respectable dose of currency, turning it less a remake and more an original work that only borrows the characters of the cartoons to launch an independent exploration of contemporary pop.

 

It should be Jerrica’s penetrating address in her introductory confessional that should guide the viewers of Jem and the Holograms through the asinine twists and turns of its predictable narrative.

There is no denying that the film is corny. It is contrived and bows down to all the requirements of unsophisticated entertainment, which include sugary sentimentality, uncommitted romantic and sexual longing, and a lot of bad jokes. 

The film’s weakest facet is its desire to follow the formula of the band flick, where characters unsurprisingly rise to fame, break up, and discover something about themselves during their separation.

Thankfully, the plot only frames the film’s bid at relevance. That’s overtly presented through sporadic deviations from the conventional gloss of the film, to low-definition footage of fictional fans with their fictional declaration of adoration, or other internet artists complementing the film’s manufactured tension with their astounding talent. 

Far from ‘lowbrow’

The subtler repercussions of the film’s experiment with mixing fictional and semi-fictional elements are more resounding. Chu was able to construct, without straying from the demands of this type of entertainment, a non-judgmental portrait of a connected world that succumbs under fragrant illusions and engineered personalities.

Its message about revealing the truth notwithstanding the weight of society’s intolerance is as mawkish as the lyrics to Katy Perry’s “Fireworks,” but at least it has a rhythm that rings for an audience for which such a message matters.

Lady Gaga is onto something when she defended pop music from its naysayers. How can the contemporary and abject affect be lowbrow?

Similarly, a movie like Jem and the Holograms that was able to dig out an artifact from several decades ago and turn it into a precise profile of the times is quite far from lowbrow.

It can be described as sloppy, messy, confused, or meandering. Given that its moments of truth eclipse all of its pronounced misses, there is no way that it can be called a failure, for centuries from now, when archaeologists are wondering how the world was like in the year 2015 when humanity was connected by pop and the Internet, it is this unfortunately maligned lowbrow film that has the most to say. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. Thefirst Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios