It's been a weird day. My air conditioner went belly up and I sought refuge from the 100+ degree heat at my local mega-multi-plex, buying a ticket to the "Bourne movie". After 20 minutes of that movie's self-conscious unsteady-cam filming technique I was feeling a little queasy and bailed. Stopping at "Bratz" to recover my equilibrium before seeking a refund and an airsickness bag. What I saw was a totally empty theater (zero people) just two weeks after the movie's release.<br /><br />I couldn't find much similarity between the teen actresses and the dolls (the dolls are all a lot cuter). What strikes me as interesting is not the content of the movie but the fact that it was given a wide theatrical release. The inventory of films must be pretty low if they have to send this anywhere but direct to video. <br /><br />As already pointed out this is "the single most shallow, insignificant, poorly-directed, badly- acted movie of this year", or maybe any year. It also has about the narrowest target audience possible for a mainstream film, 3 to 9 year old girls with an infatuation with clothes, shoes, hair, and make-up. They must be serious girly-girls, your soccer and softball playing daughters won't find anything to relate to here. <br /><br />But I'm not sure if the complaints about the message behind the film are really valid. It revolves around four multi-ethnic BFF teen girls who have nothing in common except their fashion trend value systems. Now this would be bad if the characters were played by beautiful young actresses in a school full of gorgeous likewise beautiful girls with perfect bodies. Which is what you expect from the standard pre-sold teen movie. But instead Yasmin (Natalie Ramos), Jade (Janel Parish), Sasha (Logan Browning), and Chloe (Skyler Shaye) look ready to pledge a dogs, pigs, and elephants sorority. For a while I thought I was watching an episode of "Animal Planet". Meredith (Chelsea Staub) was a pleasant exception in this school's bovine to canine parade.<br /><br />They look more like four homely college freshman than hot high school fashion types and the student body looks just as bland. Whatever happened to the days when starlets got parts based strictly on their beauty with their acting skills irrelevant? Of course acting skills were just as irrelevant in these casting choices. Which leads to the obvious question of how a group of people so average looking and so clueless about the thespian profession happened to all wonder onto the set of this movie looking dazed and confused. The point being that no little girl is going to get an inferiority complex or suffer from an eating disorder because of watching this movie. The producers have unintentionally managed the positive message that no amount of expensive clothes, shoes, hair, and make- up can make an average girl look like a hot teen actress.<br /><br />Speaking of wandering on to the set looking dazed and confused, Jon Voight plays Meredith's father and the school principal. Now I realize that the highlight of Voight's recent career is a "Seinfeld" cameo and his teeth marks on a pencil, but appearing in this mess is the equivalent of Bela Lugosi working with Ed Wood in the 1950's to support his drug habit.<br /><br />The movie concludes with a loud and irritating musical number which I suspect was inspired by the success of "High School Musical". <br /><br />Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.