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Bring It On by Stephen Farber This is the summer's second cheerleader movie, and whatever its shortcomings, it's a hell of a lot better than But I'm a Cheerleader, which mangled an amusing premise. Bring It On is less aggressively awful. It's peppered with sly touches, but they don't add up to a coherent whole. Jessica Bendinger's screenplay fails to settle on one central narrative line. When Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) becomes head cheerleader of her San Diego high school's squad, she expects to continue the team's winning record at the state championships. But then she learns that her predecessor stole their winning cheers from a black, inner city school in East Compton, and Torrance has to devise a whole new set of routines. The film can't decide if it wants to focus on the rivalry between these two teams, the conflicts among the team members, the friendship of Torrance and the more bohemian girl (Eliza Dushku) whom she recruits to join the squad, or a love triangle that involves Torrance, her former boyfriend (Richard Hillman) and the new kid in town (Jesse Bradford). PAGE 1 | 2 |
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Trying to juggle all these plot lines and a huge cast of characters, the movie flails about without doing justice to any of them. Too much of the film is spent on asides that never pay off. For example, in one significant interlude, Torrance brings in a despotic choreographer (Ian Roberts) who's just another plagiarizer. But when he departs, we never really see the team put together its winning routine, which should be the very heart of the movie. The movie's chief strength is its attractive, largely unknown cast. Two actors who got their start as child stars are making a smooth transition to adulthood. Dunst demonstrates a winning combination of sexiness and spunk. Jesse Bradford, who gave a remarkable performance as the dispossessed child in Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama, King of the Hill, has grown into a handsome heartthrob, and he strikes some pleasing sparks with Dunst. Thanks to the cast and the occasional clever touches in the script, Bring It On is a likable mess, but mess is definitely the operative word. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum. PAGE 1 | 2 |