Bring It On Review

"Bring It On” is a slice of prime teenage Americana, telling as it does the heart warming tale of a high school cheerleading team determined to win the national cheerleading championship for a fifth successive year. Of course our heroine, the newly appointed team captain, soon discovers a new set of hurdles that have to be overcome if she is to lead her team to victory; one of her star players has to be replaced after breaking her leg, and her reluctant replacement soon breaks the terrible news that the team’s award winning routines have all been – shock, horror – ripped off from another team. On top of all that we have the obligatory ‘will they wont they?’ teenage dilemma as our blonde heroine is torn between her unsupportive & unfaithful absent college boyfriend and the new guitar playing, ‘The Clash’ T–shirt wearing, misunderstood student outsider who has just transferred to her school.

Think "Clueless” meets "Pretty In Pink” meets "Rocky” and you’ll start to get the picture. There’s nothing really wrong with this movie, but there’s nothing exceptionally right with it either. The film was a surprise hit in the US, but I can’t help but wonder how much of that success comes down to the teen appeal of gorgeous girls – and guys, because, hey, this is a politically correct movie for the twenty first century! – performing choreographed routines in skimpy outfits. To its credit the film offers positive role models and a world view that any parent of a teenager should be happy for their kids to see, but how many teenagers will want to see a movie their parents would approve off?