Bring It On
If you're going to make a comedy about teens you really have to keep it satirical enough from expecting us to take the characters and their situations seriously. All the battles of the cliques and the who-likes-who subplots aren't exactly original or taxing on the intellect. "Bring It On" is a teenage comedy that half realizes this. It's got campiness to it but not as much a it needs to keep it fluffy and tongue-in-cheek. It's difficult to tell what's supposed to be taken seriously and what's not.
The setting is a high school outside of San Diego where mostly rich white preppy kids live. The Ranche Carne Toros are a lousy football team but they boost the best cheerleading squad in the country and they have the trophies to proove it. As the film opens the out-going captain "Big Red" passes the torch to her successor - Torrance - a cute blonde with a lot of ambition but little brains played by Kirsten Dunst (the teenage Cameron Diaz).
Torrance is the least stuck-up and snobby of the cheerleaders and she decides to hold an audition for a vacant spot instead of just giving it to one of the other cheerleader's little sister. There's a funny sequence of kids trying out for the team that don't know what they're doing which proceeds to introduce the next major character, Missy. She's a gymnastics expert who doesn't really want to do cheerleading but it's as close to a gymnastics work-out she can find. She's very rebellious-looking with braids and all dark makeup so not surprisingly the other girls hate her but Torrance sees something in her and lets her join.
The conflict soon crops up when Missy accuses Torrance of ripping off their cheers from a school in East Compton. The two even drive over 100 miles to L.A. to see for themselves and nearly get pummelled when the all-black "Clovers" cheerleading squad say they're sick of being spied on and having their routines ripped-off (by Big Red for years). They'd enter the national competition too but their school can't afford to send them.
And so Torrance and the gang must decide to either stick with the winning moves they know how to do, hire a choreographer or make up new routines themselves. All three of these scenarios happen, respectively.
Meanwhile there's a subplot involving Torrance's relationship with her boyfriend and another boy named Cliff (Missy's brother) who likes her too. The dating triangle starts out cute at first because Cliff's funny and does things to make Torrance like him that you usually don't see in teenage movies. When he finds out she already has a boyfriend he turns from having a crush on her to loathing her which makes Torrance realize she likes him better than her boyfriend (when someone DOESN'T like you, that's when you're attracted to them?).
This is what I'm talking about - who cares about this dating triangle stuff? It's been used everywhere else, why repeat it? And if so, why make it so blatantly obvious and over-the-top about where the relationship is going and who's going to wind up with who in the end?
The screenplay has other problems, mostly in its white guilty feeling. We're supposed to pity the East Compton Clovers because they really are a good team but don't have the resources to compete nationally. When Torrance hears of this she actually gets her father to write a check so they can go. The Clovers don't take the check though, instead they write to an Oprah-like talk show host and get the money.
I have a strong feeling the writer of this film is white and has little experience in writing for African-American characters. She's trying to play the race relations card very P.C., but it's more like pandering to the audience. Stereotypes are abundant and they're not necessary at all.
A lot of people on the Net are already describing "Bring It On" as the "Rocky" of cheerleading movies but that's not a fair description at all. Rocky was a poor guy who worked his way up, the Ranche Carne Toros are national champions five years in a row and they're going for a sixth - aww, the poor rich kids might not become champions again, boo hoo.
I could point out a lot more flaws but they're all just part of the same principle - that these teenagers' challenges and personal lives are taken a bit too seriously and the story takes shortcuts wherever it can.
GRADE: C+
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