The Cheetah Girls 3: Review

First of all, never been a huge fan of the Cheetah Girls eversince (both the movies and the songs). Never been a huge fan of Raven, either, and I don't have much of an opinion for Sabrina Bryan since she's always been pretty bland to me. I did like 3LW, so Adrienne and Kiely are okay in my book, but not really faves. All the 3LW drama was unfortunate, because they did have some pretty good songs. The first two movies were very mediocre to me. This third one seems to be trying too hard to be like HSM (as does another movie, *ahem CAMP ROCK). They should've kept it consistent with the first two movies. The movie was super short, yet it seemed like it'd never end. There was a song outbreak every 5 minutes, which just didn't flow too well. I don't know if this will make sense, but I think if you're going to do a song, it's okay if it's random (it's kind of supposed to be) but at least make it the kind of random that flows with the storyline and the particular scenes. But this was one song after another after yet another and another, so it often felt rushed and out of place at times. Like the very beginning of the movie, for example. I thought it was a bad idea to start the movie right away with the "Cheetah Love" music video, even if it was only Chanel's imagination. It was just weird and confusing. And don't even get me started on the "Dig A Little Deeper" outburst in the restaurant. I'm just going to laugh off the computer tech dude/super-rich prince and the scene where Aqua bumps into him at the same time in the same country in the same city at the same place on the same street walking right next to each other. Same with the "making up" scene where they were only mad at each other for like 3sec. I know it's a must that they lip sync but wow, at least don't make it obvious (see the guys during "I'm The One"). LOL's at how they explained Galleria's absence. (Which, by the way, I didn't really care either way. I know that's a popular topic, but like I said, not a big fan of Raven. It's weird for me, though, seeing just the three of them because I was a fan of 3LW, and to me it's like watching 3LW with Sabrina replacing Naturi or Jessica.) Also funny how there were no parents at ALL. And the elephant paranoia. And how they just ended up being extras in the end. One scene just jumped onto the other, with that feeling where there were loads of fairly obvious scenes that were skipped but you still sort of wanted to see anyway. The romances were ridiculous. Aqua and Amar (aka Kevin 347) were a bit awkward (maybe because he looks so much younger than her even though in reality he's only one year younger). You can tell what Vik's intentions were with Chanel (can yall say implants?!). Rahim and Gita were probably the only realistic romance, but the dorkiness was a tad overexaggerated. I laughed every time Do's phone rang and it said "Spain" was calling. Speaking of Sabrina, I have to admit that both her acting and singing have improved a LOT. Raven has been doing the acting thing for about as long as the Olsens, and she's a natural singer with loads of range. Adrienne and Kiely have been in the music biz for a really long time now. Sure Sabrina's more of a dancer than anything else, but her acting and singing have been pretty bland so far. The solos were.. oh, wait. There was just one solo. I guess now that Raven's gone, it's obvious who the new leader is. Again, it's just like 3LW to me, since Adrienne was always the top chica. The Indian guys were okay; yes of course they were good looking, but that's pretty mandatory and expected (again with the superficiality and the business). I hate to say it, but the main Indian characters were all very American-like. Both Vik and Amar had American accents. Rahim and Gita had subtle Indian accents. The only ones who had fairly strong Indian accents were Vik's uncle and Vik's friend who accompanied him during the auditions. By the way, the guy who plays Vik isn't even Indian and I find that pretty freakin' hilarious. Sadly, I was fooled. I've never seen any Bollywood films and don't know anything about Bollywood, so I don't know how TCG3 compares with Bollywood.

Overall it was a bleh movie, not much of a storyline, same old conflicts and ending, and the songs are just so-so. It was very pretty, though. And the girls look very pretty, but I wish they didn't overload the makeup so much. Less is more, girls. Oh, and someone please tell me why there will be a fourth movie?! And Raven's returning?? Yea, sure, we'll see. I find it a bit hard to believe, only because of her pride. I actually don't find it hard to believe that she might consider it, since her recent album got like zippo promotion thus "flopped" (but I heard it was pretty good) and she really hasn't done much on her own after TCG except College Road Trip, and I heard that wasn't exactly a masterpiece. That's been about it for her. I know about the supposed drama between her and the rest of the girls (doesn't surprise me if they're true since she seems just as bossy in real life) but based on TCG3, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of bitterness due to some scenes like Do smiling and flipping through the photo album with all four girls (pics from the first two movies) and when they explained Galleria's absence, it wasn't really expressed badly. But whatever, we'll see I guess. This review has gone long enough, and I'm getting tired of talking about this, so I'll end it here.


EDIT:
Okay, so after TCG3 premiered like a few more times this weekend (the sing-along, the whatever-along, etc), I have to admit that the songs MAY have grown on me a bit and they're not as bad as I expressed above. And honestly, I like these songs SO much better than the songs from the first two movies. I can tolerate them, and I also like them a LOT better than Camp Rock (the only Camp Rock songs I'll admit to liking are "This Is Me," "Gotta Find You," and naturally the Joe/Demi duet). I like the slower-ish songs from TCG3, but I've always liked slower cheesy ballads eversince (see aforementioned Camp Rock songs). If it has a sweet melody, I'll probably like it, regardless how cheesy the lyrics are. But anyway, I feel kinda bad for TCG3 after seeing its rating on IMDb (4.6 - ouch). Then again, I'd probably rate it about the same, 5.0 at the most. TCG2 was also, ironically, rated a 4.6 (but that's after a thousand-something votes whereas TCG3 has only had about a hundred), and that was even with Kenny Ortega's help. And TCG1 was a 3.6, so really in the large scale of things, all three movies have been pretty consistent. I honestly don't see how any TCG movie will get a higher rating (at least past a 5.0) ever. But as long as some people out there still enjoy them, then hey, that's all that counts I guess.