Bring it On

Rancho Carne High is an all-American high school with a bad football team ("Our next defeat is scheduled for next Friday, 8 o'clock") and championship winning cheerleaders, the Toros.

Departing Toros captain Big Red appoints Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) her successor. She inherits a dedicated, well-drilled squad and a surefire hit routine. But, lacking Big Red's uber-bitch qualities, Torrance pushes the team too hard and causes one to fall and injure herself. A replacement is needed, fast. The best candidate is new girl Missy Pantone (Eliza Dushku). A gymnast, she doesn't think much of cheering, but it's is the only thing Rancho Carne has. Then, seeing the Toros routine, Missy walks out, realising it's been stolen wholesale from the East Compton Clovers. And this year they're also entering the championships…

With sharp dialogue, high-energy cheer routines and plenty of borderline jailbait eye-candy for all proclivities and predilections, Bring it On has a lot going for it. Yet it's also a surprisingly serious film in its own way, as a kind of Clueless with pompoms that's got something to say about matters beyond the case for cheerleading as an endeavour just as meaningful as other more respected ones, not least America's endemic social divisions between rich and poor and black and white. Even if it ends up comfortably resolving these conflicts in that typically pat Hollywood way, it's so damned infectious and feel-good that it's hard to resist or object.

All together now:

"I'm bitchin', great hair, / The boys all love to stare, / I'm wanted, I'm hot, / I'm everything you're not, / I'm pretty, I'm cool, / I dominate the school, / Who am I? Just guess, / Guys wanna touch my chest, / I'm rockin', I smile, / And many think I'm vile, / I'm flyin', I jump, / You can look but don't you hump, / Whoo / I'm major, I roar, / I swear I'm not a whore, / We cheer and we lead, / We act like we're on speed, / You hate us 'cause we're beautiful, / Well we don't like you either, / We're cheerleaders"