Bring It On
by Lovell Mahan-Moutaw

"Spirit Hands!"

BRING IT ON is not one of the best or even in my top five teenage movies. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Clueless, Say Anything, even American Pie are better than Bring It On. I still say, take a few hours out of your life and go see this movie - that is, if you have a few hours with nothing better to do.

It is all about silly sex jokes, learning to be a leader or give it up and be a follower, silly youth-speak, race relations, bare midriffs and cheerleading.

What?

Yeah, really.

"Don't put the duh in dumb."

In a way, this movie is bizarre. It is about this girl, Torrance (what the fuck kind of name Torrance is, I do not know, I thought Torrance was a suburb of LA), who is voted the cheerleading captain of a three-time National Championship team. One of her fellow cheerleaders breaks her leg in three places after Torrance pushes the group to try difficult moves so she can keep pace with the past National Championship winning captains.

She holds try-outs to get a replacement and happens on to the fresh-from-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer Eliza Dushku, who plays Missy. Missy is a gymnast and this new high school doesn't have a gymnastics team and Missy has to do something to keep her gymnastic-qualities fresh. She is no cheerleader and is in it, I guess, to keep her body flexible, to have some reason to fulfill her all-consuming desire to do back handsprings, and to have an opportunity to deliver smart-assed remarks.

So, Missy signs on, she notices that the cheerleading squad's cheers are stolen from a black school in LA, East Compton. East Compton gets in the face of Torrance (who had no idea the last team captain stole the cheers), Missy and pals.

Torrance struggles to lead her squad away from stolen cheer routines and to something fresh. She makes a bad decision. They make fools of themselves at the Regionals. She questions her leadership ability. Everyone questions her leadership ability. In the middle of all of this, her old boyfriend is cheating on her and she's becoming interested in Missy's brother. She is fighting the East Compton girls at the same time she is trying to "make things right". Then we have the constant sniping between the footballers and the male cheerleaders, the gay may cheerleaders and the straight male cheerleaders, the curse of the spirit stick and Torrance's struggle of coping with a life that is nothing but cheerleading.

"She puts the whore in horrifying!"

Fear not, readers! Torrance, Missy and pals make it through these situations regardless of the boulder-esque obstacles in the road and a run in with Sparky, the demented choreographer.

It sounds convoluted and possibly trying too hard to mean something. Somehow, it works. It is funny, charming, slightly romantic and even, gasp, subtle in some ways. Including and especially the flirting, playfully, with stereotypes not only of cheerleaders but football players and African Americans. Nevertheless, the leaders of both squads have heads on their shoulders, dignity at their disposal and aren't afraid to open a couple cans of whoop ass.

Gabrielle Union, who plays Isis (Isis?) the leader of the East Compton Clovers, is wonderful. So is Eliza Dushku but then Dushku nearly stole Buffy right out of Sarah Michelle Geller's petite little hands. No surprise she was shipped out of Sunnydale, tout suite. Kirsten Dunst, as Torrance, tried really hard and was cute mostly but was weak way too often. Ian Roberts absolutely stole the show as Sparky, the choreographer from hell - with lines like "Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded." and in response to a cheerleader's question as to why the whole squad has to go on a diet, "Because! In cheerleading we throw people in the air, and fat people don't go very far," not to mention the spirit hands.

"She puts the itch in bitch."

The movie would have been better if it centered on the East Compton squad and their quest to get to the Nationals. Isis and pals were far more interesting to me than Torrance and her clan. The film is being billed as a minor triumph in how it portrays youth race relations (the poster even has a split of both of the squads cheering) but screen time for East Compton barely even factors in the overall picture. The story isn't about that as much as it is about leadership.

Regardless, the movie is fun, no matter its foibles and faults. I got a kick out of it, laughed and got nervous during the cheering routines - which were often breathtaking and gasp inducing. It was worth my $5.25, totally.

CineScene, 2000