Jem and the Holograms – Nostalgia Critic

It’s truly, truly, truly pathetic. One of the worst adaptations ever has to be seen to be believed. How does the Jem and the Holograms movie compare the 80s cartoon?

Donate to this week’s charity here!

About Doug Walker

Creator of 5 Second Movies, Nostalgia Critic, Bum Reviews and more.

148 comments

  1. I have to say, as a Jem And The Holograms fan, my fellow friends (who are also huge fans of the show) and I probably had more fun making fun of the trailers to this movie than we did watching the actual movie itself. And that always tells you something. XD

    • futuremoviewriter

      After seeing the review, I get why Rob is so angry. What they did with the fan videos was one of the most insulting things I’ve ever heard! Did they actually think they could get away with that shit??? And that people would not be pissed off??? Even more annoying is I like Katie Findlay and they teased her in the mid-credits scene for a sequel that will NEVER HAPPEN!

  2. GAAAAHHH!!! This movie is terrible!

  3. The Executives are my favorite side characters.

    CHARTS!

  4. The plot also steals the same formula from Josie and the Pussycats, Cheetah Girls, and that one episode of Saved by the Bell (plus who knows how many other musical rags to riches stories). This film should be placed on a pedestal so that film students may throw stones at it and never forget the sin that this film embodies regarding adaptations and general (wide) release films from every aspect: acting to cinematography, budget to marketing, writing to tone…

  5. Wow. Even as someone who has hardly even heard of Jem until this movie came out, this movie just looks complete and total manipulative-corporate bullshit. It’s almost like the millennial equivalent of Mamma Mia, only this one is hated by everyone and manages to be even more SQUIRREL O_O …

    … Like I was saying, this movie is shit.

  6. Rob Scallon was AMAZING in this! Never knew he had such great acting chops. You need to have more Rob Scallon in your videos!

  7. Whatever happened to the house??? Was it paid for???

  8. Oh it’d be cool seeing Critic do Norm of the North.

  9. I bet more people will watch this review than those who watched the Jem movie 😛

  10. Wait, Jon M. Chu directed this?… I think I’m starting to lose my respect for him. He probably should stick to dance films

  11. RoboticJesterJosh

    This movie more tragic to me because I know Jon M. Chu can make a great film. Step Up 3 was a good film and The LXD was fantastic! I want to see more of that from him!

  12. This movie makes the 3 Stooges modern adaption look like Citizen Kane

  13. Okay, okay. Where do I begin? I saw an episode of Jem once on Youtube. I thought that this movie had some potential since I barely know anything about Jem and I like the director of this movie. However, I think I was out of money during the week I was going to see this so I went to my local $2 movie theater. And then yeah, it was gone. I like the clothing montage though. Now I see that I dodged a bullet. Also, THANK YOU for a clip review. Yay! ^.^ Although: the backup dancers were really good from what I saw. LOL.

  14. Spice World would have been better (and you know we’re in trouble when Spice World is the better movie). In Spice World, the Spice girls are in full spice girls mode and at the peak of the spice girlyness right from the opening credits. You want a real story, watch anything else. But you want spice girls? You get spice girls! It’s silly, it’s over-the top, but you pay for Spice Girls and you get Spice Girls.

    Here, you get *HINTS* of Jem and the Holograms. Refferences. Little clues that say, “Hi! Remember the cartoon? We also remember the cartoon, so here’s a few tiny little things to remind you a little bit of the cartoon. You know how the cartoon was super 80s? Well, we decided not to do that, but here’s an actress that immediately screams “80s” just hearing her name, and we’re just gonna make her someone’s mother or something. Remember the giant computer that can practically do magic? Here’s a tiny robot with a projector. Remember how they were dressed? We’ll do that in one scene and actually make fun of it during that scene. Remember how the first episode started with a funeral? What? You don’t because it was just a small subplot to get the main story going because it’s a cartoon? Well, now the one depressing thing about the cartoon is the main driving point of the movie! Remember the Misfits? The agonists whose attempts to actually kill Jem were often the driving point of the plot of the cartoon? We’ll save them for sequel bait.”

  15. futuremoviewriter

    After seeing the review, I get why Rob is so angry. What they did with the fan videos was one of the most insulting things I’ve ever heard! Did they actually think they could get away with that shit??? And that people would not be pissed off??? Even more annoying is I like Katie Findlay and they teased her in the mid-credits scene for a sequel that will NEVER HAPPEN!

  16. I cannot stress how much I love IDW’s Jem & the Holograms comic and how utterly great it is. Fantastically good art, abundant and diverse women with distinct looks and personalities, splendid storytelling (albeit the first arc is admittedly slow), diversity and inclusion…it’s truly a gem.

    Any attention or money you might’ve ever given this movie is best spent on the comic, even if you don’t read it. Kelly Thompson and Sophie Campbell are genuine marvels at this and it is glorious.

  17. Is it just me, or is that stupid advertising video coming on during the Critics, with no way to shut it up while I’m trying to watch the critics video. Well, no way unless you click on it, which will open an ad window, and the whole process will start over again after 30 seconds.
    What is this? Ad spam from the 90’s? Or do I need to check my viral scanner?

  18. You know, just thinking, but Hanna Montana did the dual personality of Jem much better.

  19. I called your number and no healing was done. Asshole.

  20. I’m just curious what inspired him to review this movie that most people may not have heard about. Don’t get me wrong this was good, as usual, but it just seems odd that he would review a movie like this one.

  21. Ok, Hollywood, that’s enough. Stop it with the 80s cartoon remakes. Just leave it to TV, ok?
    Dreamworks just made a 13-episode Voltron reboot with a lot of the people who made Avatar: TLA and Avatar:TLOK, animated by the GOOD studio that worked on Korra, and it’s freaking INCREDIBLE

  22. Whoever thought of using the fans’ love for Jem for false idolization, I hope they get what they deserve.

  23. I’m curious as to what logic they did not expect this to shoot them in the foot.

    OK, let’s say, hypothetically, you’re 30 or so now, completely forgotten about Jem untill they reminded you, and you find the offer to talk about the cartoon interesting. So you do. By merely talking about it, they’ve got a casual fan all excited again.

    So they watch the movie… And they blatantly insult the fan, directly, personally, they have DIRECTLY said “fuck you” to this paticular fan, by editing their video to make it look like they were saying something other than what they meant.

    That’s something people do to their IDEOLOGICAL ENEMIES during religious/political flame wars, and it’s considdered a low blow.

  24. The Cartoon Physicist

    Awesome review, though I’m little disappointed you didn’t have a Hagan cameo. You had such a good opportunity, too. Have Hagan…aka JEM…whoop the chart guys arses!

  25. THAT PEN MAKEUP OHMYGOD

  26. I literally gagged a little bit when I saw what they did to the fans that sent in footage of them talking about the 80s cartoon at the end. What a completely disrespectful and soulless thing to do.

  27. Just rememebr In the Comic right now. The holograms and the misfits have agreed to work together in order to save the world from a plague of mindcontrol goth-punk zombies created by an evil brainwashing A.I that tries to take over the world.

  28. prime-10@hotmail.co.uk

    I’m surprised you didn’t show that angry Jem Fan thing on the side when you introduced Erica because her character on the show was a dude. Didn’t that piss fans off.

  29. I’m curious;

    Is there actually an audience for this? I mean, forget the cartoon, never mind that, pretend for a minute the movie has even less connection to the cartoon (not hard).
    What we have here is a low budget movie about teenage girls trying to get famous and it’s mostly shot with shaky cameras. Is there, you know, really a market for that?

    Gotham took the basic premis of Batman and turned it into a completely different kind of show, but one that does exist and has its fans. (Personally I’m not a fan of NYPD blue or CSI or NCIS or any of those other cop shows with letters in the name, but I like Gotham)
    Is there an audience for what they turned Jem into? Was ONE person ONCE like, “what’s all this 80s cartoon nonsense? I came to see girls barely sing and deal with things!

  30. 20:08 But aren’t you a millennial too, Doug?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.