Bring It On - Review

Yes, I know. I just gave Bring It On a 5/5 rating. But you know what? I love this movie. Yep, I'm not going to lie to you guys. First off, it takes place in high school during the early 2000's and I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like high school was more fun back then. Obviously in the movies it seems like it's sunny all the time, but the classic drive up to school in a convertible car blasting some Sum 41 or Blink 182 while dudes on skateboards zoom past you, it seems like a high school paradise. Now, you'd have some kid drive up to school in a lowered Honda Civic blasting some crappy rap song by Drake or Lil Uzi Vert and then everyone would around school glued to their phones. Now I love my smartphone, but to me, this era seemed like the years of high school I should have grown up in and was golden age of teen movies. American Pie, She's All That, Clueless and many others. While watching this movie again, I really took notice of how these teenagers talked. While some of it seemed pretty timeless, some of it was delightfully dated. Some of the terms like "dykadelic" or "slip my digits" I didn't even understand. I had to do an Urban dictionary look up for those ones. Plus the, "Put the "whore" in horrifying", talking on landlines, the "loser" sneeze and Torrence's brother playing Playstation 1, this movie is so dated and it's wonderful. I also paid closer attention to the topics of race and homophobia. So the rival cheer squad is from East Compton and feature predominantly black cheerleaders while our heroes in San Diego are all white. This leads to a fairly subtle power struggle between the two squads. Our heroes can compete every year and win by stealing and the East Compton team has been the best but can never afford to compete. A bit of subtle commentary there that is still relevant today. Also, there is an on going joke about the male cheerleaders being gay. And while one of them truly is gay and they make some gay jokes which the character embraces, one of the guys on the squad is only there to really get laid. It also adds some extra comedy when the football team that calls them "fags" (a term that you would not hear in a teen movie today) can't win a single game. But the real reason why I love this movie is that it is hilarious. Plain and simple. Kirsten Dunst is absolutely wonderful and the whole cheer squad is full of crazy memorable personalities. Take those awesome characters we love to see and put them in hilarious situations and you have got yourself some true laughing material. Not only do I love this movie because of the time period it takes place in, but it's also just damn funny. What more could you want out of a teen comedy.