Jem and the Holograms 2015

Molly Lambert, Grantland: What it lacks in humor it makes up for in sheer weirdness -- it's a master class in How Did This Get Made? It feels focus-grouped to within an inch of its life, but it's so strange that it's impossible to imagine what process led us here. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Director Jon Chu stretches "Jem" to a ridiculous 2 hours, via endless amateur-musician YouTube clips. Anyone can be a star, they attest - and always be yourself! (Except when you're Jem. I guess.) Read more

Geoff Berkshire, Variety: The film seems inexplicably embarrassed by its roots, instead serving up half-baked and self-consciously contemporary drama that no one in the sure-to-be minimal theatrical audience will remember quite so fondly some 30 years on. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Its one saving grace is that Chu's direction is so wildly inconsistent that it manages to produce a handful of genuinely gorgeous images alongside all of the cruddy ones. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Jon M. Chu, who directed the concert doc Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, maintains a lively pace, and there's some cute business involving a robot that communicates through music. Read more

Patrick Dunn, Detroit News: Hardcore fans won't find much of the Jem they loved under the movie's achingly hip millennial trappings, while young newcomers will be left wondering what a robot has to do with a rock band. Read more

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: As silly and sometimes nonsensical as it is, the movie is surprisingly sweet and well-intentioned. Read more

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: Not being part of the generation that watched the show, I can't vouch for its merits. But it's safe to say that it must be miles ahead of this wan, bloated screen version which forgoes the original's sci-fi and thriller aspects. Read more

Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times: In revisiting the pop rock quest of a multiracial group of adopted sisters in suburban California, Chu has made a stylish and self-aware musical fantasy for the YouTube generation. Read more

Scott Tobias, NPR: Jem and the Holograms is Mac and Me to Josie and the Pussycats' E.T. Read more

Neil Genzlinger, New York Times: It seems to be merely tossing ideas into the pot that it thinks might appeal to 9-year-olds. Read more

Julia Cooper, Globe and Mail: There's hardly tension, barely any drama and the sugar high you might expect from an eighties redux is replaced by a dull aspartame buzz. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Jem has lost her outrageousness and gained a robotic sidekick in an overlong, low-budget big-screen reboot of the 1980s toy-selling cartoon series. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Even though I wish the songs themselves were stronger, there's an energy and a vibrancy to the movie that its young target audience will appreciate. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Every line, every twist and every note of music feels painstakingly focus-grouped. Read more

Jim Slotek, Toronto Sun: After a few crackling, resonant digital-age scenes in the opening act, the filmmakers settle in and make Jem into a mediocre Disney Channel movie -- with, for no good reason, a pet robot. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: The movie's poky and confused, never clearly setting up its conflicts and blowing far too much of its running time on a National Treasure clue-hunt for messages Jem's father programmed into a sassy dancing robot. Read more