High Energy Entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2001)

A crowd pleaser of a film, `Bring It On' is essentially a high school sports story for girls. Though the cheering squad has boys on it, the film is clearly dominated by the young women. This represents a fresh entry into that genre, as I can't remember ever seeing another film that focuses on competitive cheerleading. The film is actually well constructed, with an interesting story underlying numerous highly athletic cheerleading scenes.
Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) is the new captain of the National Champion cheerleading squad from Rancho Carne High (that name cracks me up, literally translated it means `Meat Ranch'). She discovers that the former captain stole all their cheers from an inner city high school and this year that high school intends to compete in the regional championships with the same routine. Torrance has to come up with a new routine in just a few weeks. This is an appealing twist on the normal sports story because it focuses on the champions as the underdogs (like the Rocky sequels). They also throw in a Cinderella story with the East Compton Clovers, who are coming from obscurity to compete at the national level.
The film is lively, energetic, and generally fun to watch, although we aren't delving into the mysteries of the universe here. It takes cheerleading seriously and attempts to legitimize it as a serious endeavor, dealing candidly with the team members' self consciousness about their own sport. The teen scenes are well written, giving a frank look at some real issues teens face, like the back biting rivalries and mocking condescension between cliques. They even pack in a teen love story to further engage their target audience, which is clearly teenage girls.
Kirsten Dunst is spunky, perky, sprightly, vivacious, and otherwise youthfully exuberant. In short, she is perfect for the part. While it is true, a strong breeze could have blown Torrance away (literally and figuratively) Dunst captures the emotions and concerns of her character realistically and effectively (Dunst's being 18 undoubtedly helped). There are numerous other good performances. I am particularly impressed with Eliza Dushku as Missy. She is by far the most substantial character in the film and brings a great deal of maturity to the part. Among the entire cast, Dushku is the only actor I can see succeeding in role outside the teen genre. Gabrielle Union, as Clovers' team captain Isis, is powerful and audacious and gives the entire Clovers team a strong image. I also enjoyed Cody McMains as Torrance's sarcastic kid brother who goes to see his sister compete in the National Championships wearing a Cheerleading = Death tee-shirt.
This is a good film for young girls and is highly entertaining for just about anyone. It was a resounding financial success grossing seven times its meager $10 million budget. It is well directed and has numerous funny high school moments, along with plenty of scenes where teens take themselves all too seriously. I rated it 8/10, since it is better than many of the films in its genre. It's true that it is cotton candy cinema, (insubstantial but sweet), however it is worth seeing if you enjoy teen flicks.