Bring It On
Plot
In Rancho Carne High School, San Diego the Toro cheerleading squad are winners of the national championship trophy for five years in a row. The new team captain Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) is determined to make it a sixth consecutive win with their killer routine. However when new girl Missy Pantone (Eliza Dushku) shows her that their entire routine was stolen from the Clovers from....
Plot
In Rancho Carne High School, San Diego the Toro cheerleading squad are winners of the national championship trophy for five years in a row. The new team captain Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) is determined to make it a sixth consecutive win with their killer routine. However when new girl Missy Pantone (Eliza Dushku) shows her that their entire routine was stolen from the Clovers from East Compton they are forced to come up with a new routine.
When bringing in a choreographer lands them in even more trouble, Torrance decides that they can make their own routine and they can finally win the championship fairly without any cheating involved. It won’t be easy for them however as this year the Clovers will be there and they are determined to get the recognition they have deserved for so long.
Video/Audio
As far as I could tell the disk has a pretty much faultless picture. It’s presented in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format. Colours are vibrant and flesh tones are very natural (and there’s a lot of flesh in this film).
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack sounded a little muffled to me at first. However this either disappeared quite soon into the film or I stopped noticing it. Although the audio track isn’t packed with surround effects there is plenty of loud booming music that gives the subwoofer a damned good workout.
Extras
The Directors Commentary is actually fairly interesting, perhaps more so than the awful film. Peyton Reed spends a good deal of time discussing the background story of the scenes and also a lot of history of the cast themselves. There are also no silent gaps during the commentary; Peyton keeps a rapid pace constantly through the whole film.
The Spotlight On Location feature is the usual affair; it’s about fourteen minutes long and a mix of film clips and cast & crew interviews. There are also quite a few spoilers in here so don’t watch it before watching the film. Make up and Wardrobe Tests is a 40 second montage that seems to just consist of the two main female characters dancing around. Home Movie Music Video is another montage of behind the scenes footage of the car wash scene accompanied by a music track from the film.
There’s a music video of the track As If by Blaque. There’s a collection of Extended Scenes introduced by director Peyton Reed. These include a locker rooms scene, a stripper scene and a spirit stick flashback. There is a good collection of Deleted Scenes introduced again by the director. Video quality on both extended and deleted scenes is pretty poor, although still watchable. Finally the Theatrical Trailer is included.
The disk comes in a white plastic Amaray case with a booklet listing chapter stops and advertising other titles available. The insert only lists seventeen chapters but there are actually eighteen in the film. The main menu is nicely animated, but most other menus are static apart from the scene selections that contain short scene clips. There are no subtitles or alternate language tracks (apart from the commentary).
Overall
I wouldn’t normally go for this type of film, but it came very highly recommended to me so I though I’d give it a shot. I should have listened to my instincts as it was without doubt one of the worst films I’ve seen in a long time, utter dross. Everything about it makes me cringe, the clichés, the stereotypes, the awful acting and the shallow script to name just a few of it’s problems.
Some of the stereotypes are just unforgivable, the rich school team are nearly all white and the poor, tough team with attitude are again nearly all coloured. Then of course there’s the one male cheerleader who’s gay. There’s also the new girl that joins the squad, she starts off with attitude but soon learns that it’s good to be shallow and popular. Have I made you want to run away screaming yet?
If you’ve ever watched any of the mindless American High School programs like “Sweet Valley High” then imagine stretching it out to 90 minutes and you basically have this film. The only good thing I can say about it is that the dance sequences were pretty good, not just because they were well choreographed but also because while they are all dancing you get a break from the god-awful plot.
This is meant to be a comedy but I didn’t laugh once through the whole thing. I think I may have raised a smile once or twice through the choreographer sequence with Sparky Polastri (Ian Roberts). If I have to give it a score at all then I’ll give it a 1 out of 5, but only for the good picture and sound quality and the wealth of extras. It’s just a shame the DVD itself is wasted on this film.
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