Bring It On

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Director: Peyton Reed
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Gabrielle Union, Jesse Bradford
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 92 minutesÂ

THE SKINNY
A camp look at competitive high school cheerleading

THE BOTTOM LINE
I was more impressed with the two-minute trailer for Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous

THE FULL REVIEW
Bring It On, directed by Peyton Redd, has a few bright moments, but in keeping with the slew of uninspired teen flicks that have raced across screens this past year (Boys and Girls, Down to You, The In Crowd, Drive Me Crazy, Gossip), it offers little that will keep it from slipping into the realm of the forgettable.

The film stars Kirsten Dunst (The Virgin Suicides, Interview With a Vampire, Little Women) as Torrance Shipman, the newly anointed captain of the Rancho Carne High School Toro cheerleading squad. Torrance discovers that the Toro’s previous captain, Big Red (picture Tori Spelling on steroids), had been cheating her way to the team’s past five national cheerleading championships by stealing the stellar routines of the rival East Compton Clovers. Distraught over the fact that her life as a cheerleader has been one big lie, Torrance is determined to win this year’s competition with an entirely original routine. That won’t be easy, however, because the Clovers, led by their fiery captain Isis (Gabrielle Union – Ten Things I Hate About You, She’s All That), now get to apply their own brand of cheerleading to those award-winning routines.

Bring It On opens with a highly amusing cheerleading routine that sets the tone of the film as pure camp. The scene is lead by Kirsten Dunst, who delivers the cheer (”I’m sexy, I’m cute, I’m popular to boot…”) with so much enthusiasm that she makes the cheerleading characters played by Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri on Saturday Night Live seem spiritless by comparison. A few other entertaining moments do flare up during Bring It On – most notably the cheerleading squad’s attempts to work with a tyrannical choreographer and the close of the movie which mixes humorous film outtakes with the actors lipsynching to a remake of Toni Basil’s “Mickey.” But ultimately, the film’s screenwriter, Jessica Bendinger, has created little more than Clueless with pep but little smarts.

**SPOILER ALERT
Perhaps the film’s biggest shortcoming is its conspicuously anticlimactic ending. Torrance and the rest of the Toro cheerleaders fail to deliver on their pledge to produce a cheer that is truly fresh and original. Why, for instance, did Torrance not find inspiration in the punk-rock love song written for her by Cliff (Jesse Bradford – Romeo & Juliet, King of the Hill), her cynical love interest? After all, Torrance was shown excitedly dancing around on her bed – pom poms in hand – as she was quickly swept up in the energetic pace of the music. This lead me to believe that I might actually get to see the Torors test their moves against some revved up guitar riffs, rather than cheerleading’s standard techno-pop garbage. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

It’s a shame that Bendinger didn’t reach a bit more with her script. Overall, the acting in Bring It On was quite strong, with particularly enjoyable performances from Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Bradford, Gabrielle Union, and Eliza Dushku (True Lies, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) as Missy Pantone, the contemptuous rookie on the Toro cheerleading squad. This cast, coupled with a more inspired script might have enabled Bring It On to reach true “surprise hit of the summer” status.

By: Craig Ettinger