The four cuffed cuties in “Spring Breakers” are headed to jail for drugs.
James Franco, all is forgiven.
He failed miserably (except at the box office last week) in the title role of “Oz the Great and Powerful.’’ But he’s a hoot as a cornrowed rapper/drug dealer with metal teeth who bails out a quartet of high school girls from jail for his own nefarious reasons in “Spring Breakers.’’
If only what’s misleadingly being marketed as the first mainstream film from aging enfant terrible Harmony Korine were half as entertaining as watching Franco channel his inner Matthew McConaughey.
Yes, there are four young women (including erstwhile Disney stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens) cavorting in Day-Glo bikinis for almost the entire 92-minute running time of this mock cautionary tale. Which feels like practically forever in what’s basically a “Girls Gone Wild’’ short artily padded out to feature-length by endlessly repeating the same scenes and lines of dialogue, often three or more times.
“Spring Breakers’’ promises all sorts of titillation, like girl-on-girl action, but in truth you’re not going to get much more action than you’ll find in the brilliantly cut trailer.
Far more transgressive exploitation can be had by renting “The Real Cancun,’’ a salacious documentary that went into wide release 10 years ago.
But enough of the consumer warnings.
Besides Franco, the only actual acting going on here comes from Justin Bieber’s ex-girlfriend, Gomez (“Wizards of Waverly Place’’).
She plays Faith, a religiously devout college student who begs off when the other three girls don ski masks to rob a convenience store with squirt guns to finance their spring-break trip.
But Faith has no qualms about joining her slutty and fairly interchangeable friends Candy (Hudgens of the “High School Musical’’ franchise), Brit (Ashley Benson of ABC’s “Pretty Little Liars’’) and Cotty (Rachel Korine, the writer-director’s wife) for the trip to St. Petersburg, Fla.
The quartet’s hard partying in the sun-kissed land of beer bongs and topless women — photographed to a fare-thee-well by French cinematographer Benoit Debie — predictably lands the whiny foursome in jail on a drug rap.
They’re bailed out by Franco’s leering character — he calls himself “Alien’’ — who loads them into his convertible and installs the foursome in his sleazy beachfront crib replete with lots of guns, cash and ‘‘Scarface’’ on an endless loop.
Franco has a lot of fun with this character, which he claims was inspired by a rapper named Dangeruss.
One moment he’s fellating a revolver as a form of (unconsummated) foreplay. Then he serenades the girls with Britney Spears’ “Everytime’’ while tinkling a piano on his outdoor terrace.
But when Faith decides to take a bus home shortly afterward, I was more than ready to join her.
And even more so, when Cotty decides to abruptly depart St. Pete after being accidentally wounded during an argument between Alien and one of his business rivals.
The other two (Hudgens and Benson) are made of sterner stuff — or, more likely, they’re just dumber.
So they’re totally up for it when Alien invites them to don pink ski masks and pick up AK-47s while wearing bikinis (of course) to pay a little visit to the aforementioned business rival.
“Spring Breakers’’ has been absurdly compared in some quarters to last spring’s Florida-set hit, Steven Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike.’’
But Korine still disdains Soderbergh’s old-school interest in such niceties as developing characters you care about and a narrative that carries you along.
Admittedly, I’m far from a fan of Korine’s “Gummo,’’ “Julien Donkey-Boy’’ and the absymal “Trash Humpers.’’ But that he is proud of making intentionally sloppy and tedious movies doesn’t make them any easier to watch.
Or all that much fun, for that matter.