BRING IT ON MANIA
News & Article Page
(Article from www.canoe.ca)
Friday, February 23, 2001
Something to cheer about
By NEAL WATSON
Edmonton Sun
Oh, my god, can you, like, imagine the all-out shame?
Like, this so sucks.
I'll never, like, live this down, OK? Hello!
Blond, beautiful, oh-so-popular Torrance - she of the damned-near bionic thighs
and newly minted as the head cheerleader of the Rancho Carne Toros - has just
learned the awful truth.
"My entire cheerleading career has been a lie," wails Torrance (an adorable,
very grown-up Kirsten Dunst) in the biting, surprisingly funny Bring it On,
available on video and DVD this week.
Torrance has found out that, unbeknownst to her, the all-white Toros from the
affluent San Diego suburbs have been ripping off routines from the all-black
East Compton Clovers. Straight out of Compton was all that pompom-waving
attitude, all right.
And, like, oh the shame, the Clovers have so got the Toros' number: "You tried
to steal our bit, but you look like s---."
First, the Toros dismiss the idea and then they say, "Whatever, Clovers', we'll
still kick your equally as taut butts with our ripped-off routine." Then the
Toros get an attack of conscience.
The buffed goddesses of the Rancho Carne hallways understand that the Clovers
have a point and so, in its lighthearted, fast-moving and often tart way, does
Bring it On. A major surprise when it arrived during a slow time at the box
office in August, Bring it On earned its share of positive reviews and
encouraging word-of-mouth from a young audience.
Cheerleaders have appeared as the unattainable objects of desire for hard-up
schoolboys (and frustrated middle-aged men, for that matter) in movies from
Animal House to American Beauty and, to its credit, Bring it On adds a sardonic
chapter to an admittedly slight movie sub-genre.
There were never acid-tongued teenagers like this in a John Hughes movie.
Written by Jennifer Bendinger, a former hip-hop critic and directed by
first-timer Peyton Reed, Bring it On is brimming with teen sarcasm and hilarious
high school vernacular that puts it, if not on par with the superb Clueless, at
least in the same schoolyard.
Like Clueless, Bring it On is a gentle satire, aiming its jabs at cheerleader
subculture - "I'm sexy, I'm cute, I'm popular too boot" - the rich suburbs vs.
the impoverished inner city and universal coming-of-age checkpoints like
out-of-control lust, the high-school caste system and the never-ending quest for
hallway popularity. It's also a pretty good advertisement for the turbo-charged
workouts that are cheerleading routines.
There is every bit as much at stake when the cheerleaders take the field as the
jocks and, at Rancho Carne, the football Toros suck big time while the
pompom-wielding big-chicks on campus are the five-time defending national
champions. That sterling record is in jeopardy, of course, thanks to the
nefarious doings of Torrance's predecessor as captain. The Toros' stolen routine
is out the window and the cheerleaders have to start from scratch.
You don't get to be the captain of the squad by being a shrinking violet,
however, and plucky Torrance is soon hatching a plan to get her fellow Toros
back in the game. Torrance hires a new choreographer - a Bob Fosse-type which is
another unexpected but nice touch - and the Toros are soon ready for the
nationals.
The rest of the routine is standard issue from the coming-of-age movie playbook,
but Bring it On may have earned enough of your goodwill by this point to see it
through to its rousing conclusion.
Even at just over 90 minutes, Bring it On drags too much and it's not as hip as
it thinks it is even if it does get exuberant performances from Dunst and a cast
of very attractive teens. Bendinger's script has plenty of attitude even if Reed
isn't always up to the task of visually translating the material.
But Bring it On is a nice surprise - a cheerleader movie that, like, actually
has a few neurons in its beautiful, perfectly proportioned body.
BRING IT ON - original rating: 31/2 SUNS (out of 5); video rating: 21/2 SUNS