I really didn’t like ‘Spring Breakers’ but you should totally watch it because I can’t remember having so much fun while disliking a movie so much.

Harmony Korine wrote ‘Kids’ 18 years ago, going on to direct some really weird movies like ‘Gummo’ and ‘Mister Lonely’. He’s now managed to smuggle a movie into wide release. Convincing some ex-Disney kids to blow up their reputations by prancing around in bikinis, with machine guns and making James Franco give a blow job to a pistol.

Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine play a group of college girls in a boring town, who are so desperate to go on spring break that they rob a restaurant to pay for it. This sparks a moral fall from grace so steep it eventually sees them dancing around an outdoor piano in bikinis and balaclavas, while James Franco (with cornrows and fake gold teeth!) sings the touching Britney Spears ballad ‘Everytime’.

I keep bringing up James Franco because he is amazing in this. Whoever decided that he is a leading man is a goose, because his destiny is as a character actor playing weirdo supporting roles.

Franco plays Alien, a terrible gangster rapper and small time drug dealers. I can never truly hate a movie featuring ‘that’ Britney Spears scene and Franco’s “Look At All My Shit” monologue is destined to become a drama class staple.

That said, I am pretty close to hating this one. The main crime being that it is just so stupid.

Most of Korine’s career is based around the idea that teenagers are just one bottle of vodka away from becoming STD infested, violent killers. Unlike ‘Kids’, I was not even close to buying it, particularly by the time we get to the absurd climax.

‘Spring Breakers’ is also shot in this annoying, montage style. Complete with some idiot infuriatingly whispering “ssprinnggg break” every five minutes over the soundtrack.

Korine shamelessly and knowingly has his cake and eats it too. He appears to be critiquing raunch culture and the hyper sexualisation of teenagers, while making an extremely pervy movie, full of nudity and long slow motion takes of Justin Bieber’s ex, and the girl from ‘High School Musical’, soaking wet, in bikinis jumping up and down.

Spring Breakers is a great movie to watch with friends, then have long arguments about. It’s a completely engaging and fascinatingly awful film.

Sam Clark | Read More ‘Big Screen’ Reviews…