It posits itself as being out there for fans of the show and young girls, that I assume is the primary audience for this movie (and I guess people like me who hear about a notorious movie and get curious, but I digress). Why does this movie 'pocket' your money? It has no good reason to exist, for one thing. Secondly, the cinematography, for the *actual film*, is nice to look at, at least when you can tell what's going on (some of the film is edited quickly in its clichéd style. Peeples is not a mind-blowingly amazing singer, but she is decent enough with just her screen presence on her own, and I hope to see her in other movies. at first, until she has to repeat the same thing scene after scene). Now, first off, two positive notes here: 1), the lead of the movie as "Jem", Aubrey Peeples, is a charming young actress and is ideally cast (Juliette Lewis is good too. I don't mean that literally, like the movie comes in to your pockets and takes it all away, but. Let's get down to brass tax, folks: Jem and the Holograms is out to rob you of your money. The other option is to stick to the cartoon. This movie would be a lot better by simplifying into something more traditional. The performances and songs are unremarkable. The Youtube cuts lower the cinematic value. The scavenger hunt is excessive nonsense. The robot is far too advanced to be made so long ago. Then the movie starts piling on the problems. It starts off bland with a standard script. I expected something bad after the critical panning but I hoped for simply bland. I never watched the cartoon but I understand it does not resemble this movie. This is almost entirely due to the bad writing. The problems have little to do with them. The positive is that the young actresses are mostly fine. She falls for Erica's son Rio but Erica doesn't have her best interest in mind. Jerrica signs with Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis) of Starlight Productions insisting on keeping her sisters. Kimber uploads it as Jem without Jerrica's knowledge and it becomes a viral hit. Shy Jerrica makes a video of her singing. Jerrica misses her father who called her Jem and left her with the small robot Synergy. At the age of ten, they moved in with their Aunt Bailey (Molly Ringwald) in California, and her foster girls Shana (Aurora Perrineau) and Aja (Hayley Kiyoko). Jerrica Benton (Aubrey Peeples) and her sister Kimber (Stefanie Scott) are orphans.