Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 70% (Critics) / 67% (Audience)
Directed By: Harmony Korine
Written By: Harmony Korine
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine and James Franco
Studio: A24 Films

Synopsis: Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine) and Faith (Selena Gomez) have been best friends since grade school. They live together in a boring college dorm and are hungry for adventure. All they have to do is save enough money for spring break to get their shot at having some real fun. A serendipitous encounter with rapper “Alien” (James Franco) promises to provide the girls with all the thrill and excitement they could hope for. With the encouragement of their new friend, it soon becomes unclear how far the girls are willing to go to experience a spring break they will never forget. (Source)

The Good:
This is the James Franco I like to see…fearless and utterly committed to inhabiting a bizarre character as if his life depended on it, not the dazed and lackluster performance he gave in OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. His performance as Alien, the Britney Spears loving, rapper come drug dealer/armed robber/all around degenerate thug, is the best thing about this movie.

The Bad:
Oh jeez, where to begin? The four girls are absolutely wretchedly drawn characters that have hardly any rooting value or even the ability to make me care if they lived or died. They were just four immature, vapid, nihilistic, sociopathic brats who annoyed the living hell out of me every second they were on screen.
And I am not sure what writer/director Harmony Korine was going for with the script for this movie but he totally missed the mark as far as I am concerned. There was no social commentary, no deep meaning on the attitudes and thought processes of college age women. There was no substance to this film or the characters in it.
Then there was the direction…this film was far too reliant on a failed attempt to appear edgy and cool but instead just ended up being distracting and overdone with the quick cuts to out of sequence shots.
Also I have a feeling that I should level an accusation of sexism against Korine due to the fact that the camera lingers lasciviously and overlong on the female form in this movie. I mean I felt like I was ogling these chicks while sitting in the theater; at first it is mildly titillating but after the umpteenth time it becomes kind of skeevy.

The Ugly
Gucci Mane should never be hired to act in a movie ever again. His acting was even worse than his rapping and considering he is one of the worst rappers in the history of the genre that is saying something.
And the ending of this movie is so ridiculously over the top that it requires more suspension of disbelief than I am capable of while sober.

Final Verdict: A really bad movie that suffered from a directionless script, obnoxious directing style choices, and paper thin characters. It is a piss poor attempt at making a commercial art house movie and it fails miserably. The only redeeming factor was a truly memorable performance by James Franco.

Grade: D+