Posted: 08/30/2000

Bring It On

(2000)

by Wayne Case

On second thought, don’t.

Cheerleading and cheerleaders are a subject ripe for some good film satire. Earlier this year, But I’m A Cheerleader tried and failed in its attempt; Bring It On tries again and falls flat on its face. To be fair, there are lots of people that found this one entertaining and opening week business was a strong $17.5 million.

Not me.

I was hoping that Bring It On would do to high school cheerleaders what last year’s excellent Election did to and for high school politics. If only the film had been constructed similarly to the excellent trailer! It’s too bad that the filmmakers couldn’t have seen the trailer first and made their film around that concept!

There really isn’t any plot. It’s more like several threads of a story were filmed, then edited together with the hope that no would notice. I totally agree with Roger Ebert who suggested that Jessica Bendinger, in her screen writing debut, probably wrote a good “R” rated script and Universal decided to dumb it down for it’s current “PG-13” MPAA rating. The setting is contemporary Southern California.

The film opens quite strongly with what turns out to be a “dream sequence” taking place in a high school basketball gym. It is a sharp, satirical, and well produced scene where the cheerleaders do a terrific routine that is not matched by anything that follows later in the film. Soon after she awakens from her dream, top-billed Kirsten Dunst learns that she actually is going to be the new head cheerleader. Shortly after that, she learns that her school’s routines have been “stolen” from the cheerleaders of a nearby Black school. Somehow, this is supposed to be a crisis. We are meant to believe that performing routines developed by another school is a bad thing even though it becomes apparent later in the story that no ethical standards exist about where routines originate.

Eventually, of course, both Ms. Dunst’s squad and the Black squad compete at a poorly edited and badly shot national competition. Unfortunately, television refugee and probably debuting director, Peyton Reed, has no clue as to how to build suspense.

Nothing in his work here makes me anxious to see his next project.

Considering that no one has a real character to play, the cast does what is required. Kristen Dunst (Interview With The Vampire, Drop Dead Gorgeous, The Virgin Suicides) is attractive and talented; Jessie Bradford (King Of The Hill, A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries) ditto. Third billed, Eliza Dushku, who is a regular on television hit, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, is made-up & shot to look like, well, a vampire! Since her character here has absolutely nothing to do with the “undead”, maybe this is the director’s idea of an inside joke. (I didn’t know of Ms. Dushku’s television/vampire connection while viewing the film, but I did think she looked strange.)

I thought all technical components were below par for a feature film. As one example that really annoyed me, Jesse Bradford as Eliza Dushku’s brother has a scene where he wails on his electric guitar while Ms Dunst observes without him being aware of her presence. The matching of the sound track with the on camera action was pathetic. This is just plain sloppy.

In short, Bring It On is nothing to cheer about.

Wayne Case works in the film industry in Hollywood, and still can’t help himself - he loves the movies.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com