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In a world, where Cheering is everything...
A leader who is born into a lie...
Gauntlets are thrown, T-shirts are tight...
A showdown you won't soon forget....
Aw Yeah...Bring it ON!
Hmmm...You probably saw trailers for this flick all summer
long. And you probably thought, "What the hell is this
crappy movie?" Or, "Why do they keep torturing us
with this miserable piece of monkey dung??!" Well, at
least these were the thoughts running through my mind at the
time. But boy, was I wrong.
 Kirsten
Dunst is Torrance, the newly elected captain of a rather elite
cheerleading squad. This "team" has won five straight
National Championships in a row. But on her first day as the
new commander in chief of the crew, one of her cheerleaders
ends up in the hospital. Thus, Bring It On becomes the story
of challenge after challenge for the new leader as they attempt
to win Florida's Cheerleading version of Mortal Kombat. She
encounters romance, deceit and learns that all the cheers
she has ever learned have been stolen by their evil previous
captain from an inner-city school where cheerleading also
is surprisingly popular.
With a script that isn't half bad and some fine directing
from Peyton Reed, this film was 100% more entertaining than
I had expected. But, wait a minute right there. Don't think
that I've gone buck wild or a bit loopy(or just fallen in
love with Kirsten Dunst in underpants) just consider these
few screen gems as proof I'm right:
- A breakdancer at the Cheerleader tryouts
- In a damn funny scene, Kirsten Dunst very convincingly
loses her shit and almost kicks the crap out of another
girl.
- At the first football game...the crowd doesn't notice
the team when they are announced but go nuts when the cheerleaders
come out.
- Projectile vomit
- Humorous bloodied cheerleader after a botched maneuver
- An excellent fart scene
- Blatantly shameless cheerleader car wash scene
 Now
this isn't bad like a Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets The
Cosmic Cheerleaders or worse yet, Grease. However, there are
a few very funny moments, the choreography is excellent and
the music just plain rocks. Yes, it is painfully predictable.
Yes, there are some terribly awkward and typical PG-13 scenes.
Yes, it is a ridiculous concept of having a rivalry between
two CHEERLEADING TEAMS! But Reed has so much damn fun making
this movie, that I couldn't help but have fun, too. Now I'm
not saying that I loved this film, or that I would openly
suggest that you subject yourself to it. But I will say that
I was very pleasantly surprised at how bearable it was.
(Editor: Don't lie Wayne. You LOVED it! And I bet you'd look
real cute in tights.)
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
This disc looks great, awesome in fact! This 1.85:1 anamorphic
transfer is absolutely pristine. This film is ultra-colorful
and the image is perfectly saturated, with natural and consistent
fleshtones throughout. The compression also is excellent,
with nary an artifact in site and just a few slight edge enhancements.
The image is super crisp with sharp shadow detail, deep rich
blacks and terrific definition. It certainly doesn't get much
better than this.
 Audio:
How Does The Disc Sound?
Can you believe that Universal included a 5.1 DTS AND a Dolby
Digital 5.1 track??!! Holy Smokes! I hope we see a lot more
of this! The DTS track is phenomenal. Can you say: "Be...aggressive!
Be, Be Aggressive!" The most impressive aspect of this
mix is the LFE. WOW. Holy Rebel Bass, Luke! The low end is
thumpin' almost all the way through! It was almost too loud!
(Editor: Please! Stop with the damn exclamation points!!)
The soundstage is magnificently wide with exceptional directional
effects being utilized very well, especially during the numerous
crowd scenes. I compared the Dolby and DTS mixes during a
few of the more active scenes. The first I examined was Chapter
8, where Torrance first learns that her cheers have been plagiarized.
It begins inside a gymnasium, where the full field is faded
out with some cool rear surround effects and then dialogue
smoothly transitions to the center before a confrontation
between the two captains. With the DTS track, the stomping
bass was much more deep and resounding than the Dolby. The
gymnasium scene also was better presented in the rear channels
by DTS, and the volume was only a micro-decibel lower on the
Dolby.
The two other scenes I compared, chapter 9 and 18, were actually
quite similar. There was only slightly more pronounced sidewall
imaging by DTS in chapter 9 and tighter bass in chapter 18.
Both tracks are excellent, but the DTS gets my pom pons shakin'
just a little bit more. Gimme a D! Gimme a T! Gimme an S!
There also is a French 5.1 Dolby Digital dub and English
Closed Captions.
 Supplements:
What Goodies Are There?
This is what a "Collector's Edition" is all about.
This disc is full to the gills with supplements, many of which
are actually even entertaining! Peyton Reed has to be a DVD
geek as he seems totally into the format. He participates
in almost every extra and often will make mention of what
you, who is probably watching the DVD right now, might want
to do while watching the disc.
Let's start with the Spotlight On Location: The Making
of Bring It On featurette. This is one of the best "Spotlight
On Location" segments I've ever seen, mainly because
it isn't just a long preview with a few blips from the director
thrown in. Better yet is the screen-specific audio commentary,
which is an absolute joy. Director Reed almost talks too
much! This is also one of the funniest commentaries I've heard,
as Reed knows exactly where his movie is cheesy and elaborates
on some very funny moments in the script and with the cast.
Ten full Deleted Scenes also are included. Now, I
normally hate this type of extra, because 9 times out of 10
each deleted scene sucks. But not here. Reed introduces each
of the 10 scenes and why it was cut. Almost all of the scenes
were amusing. Along the same lines is an Extended Scene
extra. Three scenes were cut down in the final cut, and Reed
tells us why they were trimmed. These are very funny, so don't
skip it.
Then there is the extra I was most looking forward to - the
Never-Before-Seen-Home-Movie of the "Car Wash
Scene." But this actually turned out to be kinda lame.
I mean, it looked exactly like what was in the movie. However,
I suppose if you are looking for some sort of direct access
to this scene...then here ya go. The second of the three lame
extras are the Wardrobe and Makeup Tests. Here Kirsten
Dunst and Eliza Dushku prance around in a couple of different
outfits to one of the tunes from the flick. Then there is
Did You Know That? Universal's Animated Anecdotes,
which is the last lousy extra. It is a terrible Pop-Up Video
rip off that basically is a subtitle show off the commentary.
Randomly colored boxes appear in the picture and display text
for an extraordinarily short time with some factoid that often
has nothing to do with whatever is going on in the movie at
that particular moment. This extra also can run with the audio
commentary so those of you who don't usually like to sit through
commentaries can have another form of stimulation. (Editor:
Hey, I like Pop-Up video!)
 The
music group Blaque makes their acting debut in this film,
and this disc includes their music video for the song
"As If." The tune is OK, but the video itself is
a nice sampling of scenes from the film combined with a comical
story line of its own. The theatrical trailer is also
only OK, though at least it is in widescreen. But I do have
to say that I saw trailers for this flick a billion times
last summer and don't ever remember seeing this version. Not
to mention the fact that half of this trailer made up of stuff
that was deleted from the final cut. Weird.
Now we get down to the text extras. These include the obligatory
Productions Notes and Cast and Filmmaker Filmographies.
The production notes detail the screenwriter's inspiration,
as well as of what the director and cast liked about this
film (most of the info is repetitive.) The filmographies are
of the main cast, director and screenwriter. Peyton Reed has
done some cool behind-the-scenes documentaries, so maybe that's
why there are so many cool extras on this disc? The last supplement
is a Recommendations section. There are five, three
of which have full screen trailers attached (Reality Bites,
The Skulls and October Sky). There also is a specially designed
Easter Egg for all of you who enjoy that sort of thing.
Have fun!
Parting Thoughts
OK. Now that I have said all this, please do not envision
me in tights, or in a cheerleading outfit jumping up and down,
just because I enjoyed this film. It's kinda fun, and if I
didn't say that this disc is pretty close to technically perfect,
I would be doing it and the producers a terrible injustice.
I thought this film would stink. It didn't. After the first
ten minutes, all I could think of was some of the good 80's
high school films that this flick seemed like it was going
to rip off. But I was very surprised as this film was a more
than fitting tribute to its predecessors than anything else.
All said, give it a whirl...and don't knock tights till you've
tried 'em!
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