Jerrica Benton (Aubrey Peebles) is painfully shy, so she uploads a video of her singing to YouTube while wearing a disguise. The video is an overnight sensation as people try and figure out the "mystery" of Jem, Jerrica's alter ego. A record executive (Juliette Lewis) finds her and convinces her to sign to Starlight Records, but Jerrica won't go without her band consisting of her three sisters. The four arrive in Los Angeles and discover that Jerrica's dad (Barnaby Carpenter) had left her a scavenger hunt to find pieces of his unfinished robot, Synergy, that coincidentally take her on a journey of self-discovery.
This is a movie based on a toy property so it was already going to be a shameless cash grab but that didn't have to be a negative. Jem commits the cardinal sin of pandering. It desperately wants to be cool and effortless but misunderstands its target audience. Probably because it was written, produced, and directed by middle-aged dudes. Not a single woman was involved in this. All the characters are shallow caricatures, a lot of the creative content is ripped straight from YouTube (which feels icky and exploitative), and the original music is saccharine generic pablum that sounds like pop but isn't. Like someone said "how hard can it be to write a pop song?" and then proved exactly how hard. Pop music is pop because it forges a universal (hence, popular) connection between artist and listener. These songs didn't do that for me. As always, your mileage may vary. But based on the Rotten Tomatoes score (22% for critics, 40% for audience), I'd say I'm in the majority.
I have no idea if the original cartoon still holds up. I remember watching the VHS over and over when I was like 7, but I don't actually remember anything about it other than colors and music. The series is apparently streaming on Tubi if you want to check it out.
The movie is available on Netflix but is not worth it.
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