Bratz: Rock Angelz

What’s the Story?

In Rock Angelz, aspiring writer Jade (voiced by Soleil Moon Frye) is chosen to be a fashion magazine intern. But the domineering editor-in-chief, Burdine Maxwell, bosses Jade around and favors the Bratz's arch-nemeses, the Tweevils. When Burdine threatens to ruin Jade's future career, Jade and the Bratz start their own self-titled publication, and they head to London to find hip new trends. A secondary theme about how to tell good boyfriend material from bad emerges when Chloe (Olivia Hack) takes up with a cute British boy she meets on the plane, who turns out to be more frog than prince.

Is It Any Good?

What to say about a cartoon that targets tweens (and younger) yet has its impossibly thin, fashion-crazy main characters parading around in skimpy outfits and platform heels with makeup caked on their faces? Not much that's wonderful. Dealing with "lame-o" boys and "fashion freaks" and "royal jerks," it's mean spirited and not quite appropriate for target age group. The emphasis on the externals is worrisome, as is the Bratz look itself: They hardly look like the empowered girls they say they are.

Two positive notes: The music is hummable and, through thick and thin, the girls find their way to each other. When they neglect their friendships, they are eventually apologetic. Soleil Moon Frye, who played the scrappy, cheery, wholesome Punky Brewster in a TV series decades ago, voices one of the Bratz. Too bad this series isn't as positive a role model as her 1980s alter-ego was.