Yo, it's really not like that, bro. However I am fascinated by the concept of the toy line: miniature consumer items with smiley faces, teaching girls, urging them, to shop. The characters are shopping personified. It's very 'meta' if you think about it, which you shouldn't, because it's rather depressing. And now they're branching out into the Animated Advertising world, where the Cups of Noodles and Lipsticks will team up with the human Shoppies to solve someone's problem. Let's see if it's worth it. Full disclosure: I have a ten-year-old daughter.

Chef Club is a ruse cooked up by new Shoppie in town Peppa Mint, who doesn't have any friends and doesn't know how to get them. The other Shoppies, whose names I don't care to know, take Chef Club seriously, one even pins her entire self-worth on getting compliments for her cooking and stuff. Things get so heated, we end up with a figurative bloodbath. If any ten-year-old-girls are reading this, I apologize for the spoilers.

My daughter was both fascinated and repelled by Shopkins: Chef Club. (Nauseating slogan: 'Once you shop, you can't stop.") At forty-four-minutes length, with no extras, it's a sad excuse for a DVD release. On the same level, the relatively small production crew involved seems somehow refreshing, like a close-knit team of spunky go-getters or something, but the level of engagement with the product evinced, (or at least inferred by me) seems to be that of talented people punching a clock. The animation is bright and basic, while humor doesn't extend much beyond the incongruities of a living lipstick using phrases like 'OMG' in conversation.

An example of hyper-branding, (based upon a toy-line of miniature living products ostensibly intended to indoctrinate girls into a life of shopping) Shopkins: Chef Club involves simpering and shrill girl characters obsessed with looks, fashion, and getting compliments. Isn't there something else out there to teach our daughters? The movie is breezy, and nearly-innocuous, but it's also an airless nightmare, with a mildly absurdist sensibility in service to nothing more than a climactic tomato fight that leaves Chef Club looking like a slaughterhouse, and the 'blood'-spattered Shoppies riding a seemingly gore-clotted wave through town: The good-old Strawberry Shortcake meets Stephen King finale. Don't subject your kids to this. Skip It.

The DVD

Video:
This DVD comes in an eye-searing 1.78:1 ratio presentation with ultra-bright, super saturated colors. It's about as crisp and clean an image as a DVD can have, with simple animation that flows smoothly.

Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound hangs out in the upper registers, paying the most attention to the Shoppies and Shopkins squeaky or whispery voices. In that, dialog is clean, clear and damage free, just sometimes whispery. The 5.1 mix is fairly unremarkable, the pop theme songs have a nice stereo image, but the rest is fairly pedestrian.

Extras:
French Subtitles and a French 5.1 Audio Option as well as English SDH Subtitles are your only extras.

Final Thoughts:
An example of hyper-branding, (based upon a toy-line of miniature living products ostensibly intended to indoctrinate girls into a life of shopping) Shopkins: Chef Club involves simpering and shrill girl characters obsessed with looks, fashion, and getting compliments. Isn't there something else out there to teach our daughters? The movie is breezy, and nearly-innocuous, but it's also an airless nightmare, with a mildly absurdist sensibility in service to nothing more than a climactic tomato fight that leaves Chef Club looking like a slaughterhouse, and the 'blood'-spattered Shoppies riding a seemingly gore-clotted wave through town: The good-old Strawberry Shortcake meets Stephen King finale. Don't subject your kids to this. Skip It.

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