Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.5

Material Girls Blu-ray Movie Review

Sadly, we’re living in a material world.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater April 12, 2011

I don’t pretend to understand America’s obsession with heiresses and neo-socialite celebutantes, those poor little rich girls famous just for being rich and famous. Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, the Kardashians—all inexplicably command legions of Twitter-following, reality show-watching fans, and it’s our fault. Consumers drive pop-culture, so we have only ourselves to blame for why the airwaves are clogged up and dumbed down with the vapid, talentless, sex-tape-making spawn of the upper class elite. If only we could collectively ignore them, they’d eventually go away, but we can’t, and so they won’t. There are simply too many fame-obsessed plebes gobbling up this nonsense and living vicariously through it—the sordid tabloid headlines, the panty-less upskirt shots, the drunk driving, shoplifting, and drug arrests. Material Girls, presumably, is for them. The film is billed as a comedic satire of the heiress lifestyle, but it has the same trashy, tone-deaf, unbelievably obnoxious sensibility.

Material Girls

Real-life Tinseltown glitterati siblings Hilary and Haylie Duff play the Marchetta sisters, Tanzie and Ava, spoiled-ass heiresses to their late father’s cosmetics company. The sisters are the sort of bratty, empty-headed imbeciles who have had life served to them in bedazzled silver spoons since they were born. Their shared fortune funds a carefree existence of nearly non-stop partying, interrupted only by spa sessions and beauty sleep. Good luck trying to have a conversation with them, because they’re constantly texting on their cell phones, and they probably won’t even notice you if you’re not a rich size-0. They’re generally clueless, tactless, and blithely unaware of the lower class. But, of course, this is all about to change.

Tanzie and Ava get a double dose of how the other half lives when a scandal emerges, alleging their father’s skincare line causes massive boils and other facial disfigurations. Their ample assets are frozen while an investigation takes place, and the two sisters are suddenly regarded as B-list outcasts. But it gets worse. While giving themselves facials, they accidentally burn down the family mansion and are forced to move in with—gasp!— their kindhearted former maid (Maria Conchita Alonso). This leads to a number of attempted comic interludes, a la The Simple Life—the Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie reality show—where Tanzie and Ava reveal how bafflingly inept they are at dealing with “common” folk. Instead of washing dishes, they throw them away. When a temp agency recruiter asks them if they know how to type, they whip out their phones and show how fast they are with their thumbs. They complain about having to ride the bus with smelly people. Poor things.

You may wonder, “What’s Angelica Huston doing here?” Slumming is the natural answer, although I can’t imagine she needed the money this desperately. Perhaps she owed someone a favor. Who knows? Still, Huston comes closest to being a saving grace. She plays “Fabiella,” a scheming skincare competitor who wants to buy out the Manchetta brand, and her wacko witchiness makes her scenes at least moderately bearable. The other subsidiary characters add little to the equation. Inception actor Lukas Haas shows up as a pro-bono lawyer and Ava’s potential crush object, and Tanzie gets her own squeeze in Marcus Colomo’s Rick, a lab technician who gets mistaken for a parking lot attendant. In the weirdest bit of casting, Brett Spiner—yes, Data, from Star Trek: The Next Generation—is the hokey, sycophantic CEO of Manchetta, sucking up to the sisters in person but conspiring behind their backs. No one makes much of an impression, and that’s a good thing—this is a film you’ll want to forget as soon as possible.

Do I need to reiterate how extraordinarily stupid Material Girls is? Do I need to point out how unlikeable the characters are and how drearily predictable the plot is? Inspired by Erin Brockovich, the two sisters decide to clear their dad’s good name and embark on a covert gumshoe mission to find out who’s really behind the scandal. Along the way, they learn some valuable life lessons, like, poor people are people too, that lab technician isn’t a valet, and if your house is burning down, make sure you rescue the TiVo. “Ill-conceived” doesn’t even begin to describe the inanity of Material Girls’ script, which somehow took three people to write. “Uniformly insufferable” can only approximate the awfulness of the Duff sisters’ too-close-to-home performances. And “laboriously unfunny” would have to be hyperbolized a thousand times over to even come close to expressing the almost-pitiable sadness of the film’s flailing stabs at humor. Material Girls will be remembered—if it’s remembered at all, which is doubtful—as one of the worst films of the 2000s, a decade that produced more than its share of disposable tripe. At least Catwoman and Battlefield Earth can be watched for kitschy, so-bad-it’s-good entertainment.

Material Girls Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a terrible film, middling picture quality. It seems fitting. Material Girls makes its Blu-ray debut with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that was most likely sourced from an old high definition master prepped for DVD release. The image is murky and soft, and although the film's grain structure looks fairly natural, it is quite thick, a trait that's amplified by frequent swarms of what looks like compression noise. White specks dot the print and you'll notice occasional moiré-like shimmer on objects with tight lines, like Ava's knit hat. While the image is recognizably "high definition," there's little fine detail to be found in the places where you normally expect it—the actors' faces, hair, and clothing. Even a usually distinct texture like the looped threading of a terrycloth bathrobe becomes spongy and indistinct here. The transfer's color reproduction also has a few less-than-desirable issue. Highlights are frequently overexposed and blown out, and the color balance sometimes has a harsh, garish quality, with too-pink skin tones. At least black levels seem solid, but that's about the best I can say. For whatever reason, Material Girls looks about twice its age on Blu-ray, and I can honestly say I've seen silent films that look better in high definition.

Material Girls Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Material Girls' DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track fares better, but it does little to exert itself over the film's 97-minute runtime. As a lightweight comedy—or, an attempt at one anyway—Material Girls' mix is talk-heavy and front-centric, and the voices cut through cleanly, with no muffling, peaking, crackles, or drop-outs. There are moments, however, when you'll wish the Duff sisters' inane utterances were obscured in a devouring wash of white noise. The dialogue is that bad. The rear channels are only sparsely used for ambience—chatter at the club, quiet environment- establishing sounds, etc.—and there are few cross-channel effects of any kind. There's a score, by Jennie Muskett, but I'm trying my best to banish it from my mind forever. It sounds strong, at least, with decent range and clarity at all times. Rounding out the mix are a handful of pop songs, including, yes, a cover of Madonna's "Material Girl" by the Duff sisters. The disc also includes Spanish and French dubs, as well as English SDH and Spanish subtitles in easy-to-read lettering.

Material Girls Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Martha Coolidge
• Getting to Know Hilary and Haylie as the Marchetta Sisters (SD, 9:32)
• Cast of Characters - The Making of Material Girls (SD, 9:56)
• Material Girls Music Montage (SD, 2:21)
• Music Video - Hilary Duff "Play with Fire" (SD, 3:11)
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:18)

Material Girls Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Subject me to The Room, lock me in a basement and force me to watch Troll 2 on repeat, but please don't make me sit through Material Girls again. I don't think I could handle it. If I see the Duff sisters whip out their pink, gem-encrusted cell phones one more time, I just might have an aneurism. Material Girls should be treated like the celebutantes it celebrates—ignore it, and hopefully it will disappear from the pop culture landscape for good. We can only hope.