‘Spring Breakers’ Review Roundup

Spring Breakers hit theaters on March 15, 2013. See what the critics had to say.

Spring Breakers stars Ashley Benson, Heather Morris, James Franco (Spider-Man), Rachel Korine (the director’s wife), Selena Gomez, and Vanessa Hudgens, and appears to be yet another party movie from the outside. However, it turns out to be a film about normal people getting wrapped up in serious crimes. As a side-note, this is not a family film.

It starts out looking like your average beach party with scantly-clad women just living it up, but then it ends up going criminal and white-trash. Seriously, the only one of the four main actresses who tries to be good is Selena Gomez, who plays a Christian believer and a nice girl.

The four play Southern college girls on their Spring Break. They lack hotel and booze money, so they rob a restaurant with fake pistols. The girls have themselves convinced they’re just acting out parts in a movie, and none of it is real. They get sprung out of jail for other crimes not related to the robbery, with bail money from gangsta rapper “Alien” (James Franco).

As soon as you’re ready to walk out of the theater due to Spring Breakers‘ refusal to take itself seriously as a Baywatch clone, it reels you back in and makes you realize it’s treading new ground. James Franco is almost unrecognizable from humanity, with his cornrows, gold-capped teeth, and early 2000s style rapper persona. This film dares you to hate it, before showing you why you shouldn’t.

In a style similar to Pulp Fiction, this film doesn’t tell you what’s happening straight out. Spring Breakers gives you snippets that you have to put together and make up your own mind about. Director Harmony Korine dives into an American dream that nobody talks about in public, turning his exploration into such a gonzo, outrageously funny party that it takes a while to appreciate that this is more of a horror film than a comedy.

What did you think of Spring Breakers?