Jem and the Holograms (2015)

Want to hear the opinion of one of Jem's alltime most knowledgable fans and biggest collectors, since 30+ years? The biggest female 80's cartoon star has made it to the big screen with her own live-action movie! If you looove modern rockmusicals with great original songs, talented actors and singers, drama and humor, female leads, and lots of color and fashion, this is for you! A treat of nostalgia also because it features 80's and 90's moviestars like Juliette Lewis and Molly Ringwald, in fun specially designed roles where they really get to shine. About the criticism: The music style was slightly changed, but it a was a cool new sound with several great tunes. And wellsung by the very talented Aubrey Peeples as Jem herself! This movie concentrated on the main band, but they did include the Misfits at the end with Keisha Sebert as Pizzazz. Suggesting a possible sequel. This movie got a very limited budget compared to Transformers and G.I. Joe. So it couldn't possibly had done justice to a holographic computer like Synergy. The robot solution was quite cute though. What other new interpretations ever brough back the original crew? But this movie did give the original writer Christy Marx, singer Britta Phillips, and voice actress Samantha Newark cameo roles. This movie had alot of female involvement in leading- aswell as creative positions, plus the four leadroles were females, and they changed Eric Raymond into a female. Besides, the inventor of the original Jem concept on the other hand, was male! Aurora Perrineau is wonderful in her role as the black drummer Shana. I support the battle against discriminating black people in Hollywood. And yes Aurora has a white mother, but Aurora probably heard about the role through her famous black father. And, the director himself is of Chinese origin and I believe he and Aurora Perrineau are both aware of racism. Though the movie makers requested fan involvment, and didn't cast fans in the leading roles. They did give fans background roles, included lots of their Youtube clips, and even held a poster contest. What other movie ever did this? Whether or not we like his other work, with singers like Justin Bieber, Scooter Braun made some wonderful things happen with the music for this movie. And he is also the manager of amazing Ariana Grande (who appeared herself in the DVD version of this movie)! In conclusion: This is not the cartoon. It's based on the cartoon. So if you're into this genre, the low score on IMDb.com will have you set for a positive surprise, because this movie has alot of heart! During production there was a crazy hate campaign against this movie, by selfproclaimed critics that just chewed on any news, and dismissed the entire project as a mockery of "their" beloved show. Unknown "fans" I had never heard of before in the Jem communities, acted as if they had the only say about this movie. And they filled the internet with crap, and couldn't even be fair about the positive things about the movie. That is not objective nor honest. Much of the "criticism" was directed directly towards the young female leads in social media. And came from American males who never watched the Jem cartoon. They learned that hate for this movie was the mainstream opinion. It was easy to trash this movie simply because it was low budget movie, with female leads, and had no action. Most online reviewers don't even get the names right of the main characters, and they can't think of one unique piece of criticism. This ruined the experience for those of us who looked forward to Jem finally coming onto the big screen! In Europe this movie most opinions were positive for this movie, but due to early online criticism by Americans, many European theaters cancelled the movie before it even premiered there. This movie is infact very wellwritten and shows alot of attention to details to the original Jem, and brought alot of attention to the original show. With that said, I loved the original Jem. And would love to see it return in a very recognizable form as a cartoon, and include the amazing original crew who were responsible for making Jem what it was. Lastly, no I don't write this review 3 years after the movie premiered on behalf of any of the movie makers! I simply don't have a problem with female lead roles (many talented people there!), skincolors, enjoying a great story, nor listening to great music. I am free to enjoy this movie, and speak my opinion! And I can't think of a person in the world who knows the original Jem better than me. I love this movie for what it is, and for the attention it brought to our beloved Jem! But let's just not blame this movie for not being everything each one of us might have personally wanted for ourselves. This movie is truly outrageous in its own wonderful way!

While this movie is certainly inspirational, and delivers a strong message about believing in yourself, it's a far cry from the Jem and the Holograms animated series that people who grew up in the 80's would know; had the movie been given a less familiar title it may not have drawn the level of attention it did. Of course, it wouldn't be Jem without Synergy, and finding Synergy's missing parts does make for some of the movies better moments. Jem and the Holograms' rivals The Misfits only appear very briefly at the end, but the hatred is clear, and leaves the possibility of a sequel in which the 2 bands compete both on and off the stage.

Okay let me start by saying, I don't hate this movie. I thought the costumes were enchanting, the soundtrack was catchy and the acting wasn't horrendous. All in all, it's a decent flick...but the title is incredibly misleading especially if you're an original Jem fan.In all honesty I wasn't terribly surprised that this movie would be nothing like the cartoon for which it was named for. Hollywood is notorious for taking a plot from either a video game, book, cartoon, or even an older flick and turning it into a more modern day disaster. So the fact that this movie had basically nothing to do with the original premise is probably what killed it. You would think they would learn by now. Fans love their fandom. Change it at your own peril. I can usually look at something objectively. As I mentioned before this was I rather liked this movie...It just should never have been based on Jem.

Jon Chu should be banded from anything prior to 2000. This was really really bad. I have seen amateurs with old camcorders make better films than the garbage he created with this movie. Actually calling it garbage is an insult to garbage. No originality it is basically Hannah Montana, why didn't he just call it Hannah Montana and friends that would have been more applicable this had absolutely nothing to do with Jem, and to make it worse the script, sucked....