The Three Things That Make ‘Jem And The Holograms’ Worth Watching Even Though It Bombed

By Joe Reid @joereid
Published Jan. 21, 2016, 4:00 p.m. ET

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Jem and the Holograms

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When Jem and the Holograms opened in October, there was not a whole lot of good news to go around. One of the all-time worst box-office performances for a wide release ever. The reviews weren’t much kinder, either. Bad news for a movie that wanted to be the latest to cash in on the ’80s nostalgia toy-to-movie craze. Now that it’s clear of the box-office crater, however, Jem and the Holograms is available to rent or buy on VOD. Could it be one of those movies that went unappreciated in their first go-round but are worthy of a second look?
Sort of!
Okay, I’m not going to defend the bulk of Jem and the Holograms. As an adaptation of an ’80s cartoon, it makes a bunch of changes from the original that really don’t benefit it. Aging the characters down to teenagers was probably a no-brainer from a marketing perspective (this is ultimately a movie for kids, and kids like to see things about kids), but it kept them from casting older, more seasoned performers in the roles of the titular Jem and the Holograms, which is a missed opportunity. It also lends itself to the movie’s most pandering element: a pervasive wallpaper of YouTube clips and vloggers, meant to place Jerrica Benton and her foster sisters within the youth culture of today. Every kind of video star is represented, from breathless fan videos to makeup tutorials to amateur musicians. Rather than helping to illuminate Jerrica’s story, all it does is drown her inside what feels like a Google ad.
There’s a general trend of drabification of what was initially a pretty fantastical premise. A young woman who transforms herself into a pop music star via holograms triggered by her earrings isn’t something that could easily be conveyed in a live-action film, but the alternative, which is what we get here, is a kind of downbeat indie tale that makes a few safe, surfacey nods at the source material but otherwise tries to sneak a generic teen-rock-band movie under the Jem umbrella. Pink hair and color-blocked makeup do not a Jem and the Holograms movie make. And even that would have been forgivable if the film itself was fun or full of an infectious, youthful energy. It’s not.
BUT this is not just another pan. I think you still might want to give this movie a look. There are three elements in Jem and the Holograms that make it a bad movie worth savoring , even just for bits and pieces. For a movie that got a reputation as a total disaster, it features at least one super fun supporting performance, and the best post-credits scene of 2015.

Juliette Lewis

When the casting for the Jem movie was announced, all attention shifted away from Jem and the Holograms themselves (since they were being played by actresses we knew virtually nothing about) and onto Juliette Lewis, who was cast as Erica Raymond, the music executive set to prey on our girls. The role was originally a man in the cartoon, and Lewis wastes no time at all in glamming the role up. The performance is exactly what you want in a movie that shouldn’t be afraid to get campy, and it’s like water in the middle of a desert in the middle of a film that can’t seem to find its sense of fun anywhere else. From the second Lewis saunters onto the screen, we know exactly the kind of performance we’re going to be getting, and the sense of anticipation is glorious. Not to get hyperbolic, but how many movies had a moment as fantastic as the part where Juliette teaches Jerrica how to smile on the red carpet (“look like you’re having fun but don’t have fun!”), including a tutorial on “squinching,” which is basically smizing without courting a trademark lawsuit from Tyra Banks.

Ryan Guzman in a Towel

Allow me this moment of shallowness, but Ryan Guzman — who has been pretty great in the Step Up movies and who played the title character seducing Jennifer Lopez with first-edition novels in The Boy Next Door — plays the love-interest character Rio, who wasn’t all that interesting in the cartoon (save for his oddly purple hair) and isn’t very much improved in the live-action version. But the movie at least knows what’s good for it in a scene in the middle of the film when Jerrica happens upon Rio fresh out of the shower. Check out the literal up-and-down ogle it gives him:

Shameless. But thank you.

The Mid-Credits Scene

Okay, here’s where it gets amazing, yet also frustrating. After a film’s worth of distancing themselves from the cartoon series while throwing the smallest of bones to anyone who might be a fan — Synergy is there, but instead of a holographic computer system she’s a tiny BB-8 looking thing that only projects tiny holograms; she’s basically a night light — the filmmakers wait for the mid-credits scene to even broach the subject of the Misfits.
As anyone who watched the cartoon knows, the Misfits — Roxy, Stormer, and Pizzazz — were THE main villains of the show. They were even in the opening credits. Half of the fun of imagining a Jem and the Holograms movie was imagining what women they’d cast as the Holograms and the Misfits and the watch them go at each other. Musically-speaking, of course. Lord knows I did my fair share of fantasy casting. At one point, I’d settled on Kristen Bell as Jerrica, Emma Stone as Kimber, Naturi Naughton as Shana, and Liza Lapira as Aja. And as far back as 2011, I knew who I wanted as the Misfits:

Bummer about that Cher idea, right? Anyway, a few years later (Jem fantasy casting is a way of life), I amended my picks. But one name stayed constant:

And yet: no Misfits in the movie. Watching an entire Jem and the Holograms movie without the Misfits was like watching an entire G.I. Joe movie without Cobra. Or Autobots but no Decepticons when you watched Transformers (don’t watch Transformers).
And then, in an act of both fan-service and hubris (“Oh, this will set up the sequel we’ll surely get, after the movie succeeds wildly!”), we got the mid-credits scene, where Juliette Lewis seeks out a band that will help her get revenge on Jem. As Stormer, none other that Katie Findlay. And in a delayed reveal that makes me SO SAD nobody saw this movie, because we all deserved to experience this in the theater: out comes KESHA HERSELF as lead singer Pizzazz.
It’s not just the thrill of being right (though, seriously, four years prior!), it’s also the thrill of Kesha sizing up her moment and delivering her lines — ripped straight from the classic Jem opening credits — in the slurriest, most affected Kesha delivery possible, offering us a glimpse of the movie that might have been. Jem and the Holograms may have deserved to tank, but this moment deserved to at least be recognized as a diamond in the rough.

Avengers assemble!
You can rent or buy Jem and the Holograms on Amazon Video.