Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

So it seems I’m only doing the odd numbers of the ‘Bring it On’ series of movies since I’ve seen the forever classic original, the third one ‘Bring it On: All or Nothing’ and this fifth movie… yes five movies… ‘Bring it On: Fight to the Finish’. I guess the good thing about these ‘Bring it On’ movies is say you missed ‘Bring it On: Again’ you wouldn’t have to back track to see it to get a grip on ‘Bring it On: All or Nothing’ since they aren’t sequels at all but the same damn movie made over and over and over again. Truth be told I had no intention of watching this movie as I was ‘Bring it On’ exhausted but my Brother-in-Law informed me that Christina Milian would be the lead in this movie. I respond to him with the comment that Christina Milian, as insanely lovely as the woman is, might be a shade too long in the tooth to be playing high school student, to which he replies with ‘Exactly!’. You see as he explains to me part of the magic of the first movie was the perv factor because that movie featured a bunch of women in their mid to late twenties dressed in high school cheerleader uniforms and bouncing around for all to enjoy. The problem with the third movie that I saw was that it featured girls who were much closer to high school age and really was a true cheerleading movie. Thus if you watched that movie for anything other the cheerleading you would probably qualify to be a legitimate perv. This one gets back to the basics. Grown women well past their high school years dressed in way small cheerleader outfits and dancing around wildly inappropriately for high school girls. Outstanding.

I suppose we’ll describe this movie even though it is completely unnecessary, seen one seem ‘em all, but Ms. Milian is hot blooded and fiery Latin East L.A. high schooler Catalina Cruz whose mother has met and married a very wealthy man who moves the family, against Catalina’s will, to some swanky palatial Malibu estate. This means that spirit queen Catalina must leave her East L.A. spirit team behind. We saw this East L.A. spirit team during one of their spirited, completely inappropriate practices and quite honestly all we could say under our breath was ‘damn…’. You would think the school would buy these girls some shorts that fit.

Okay, in Malibu Catalina quickly makes enemies with the schools queen bitch and top rogue cheerleader Avery (Rachele Smith) and her right hand girl Kayla (Meagan Holder). Not that I’m saying anything but Meagan Holder’s presence in this movie just might’ve made Christina Milian the number two hottie in this movie. But this is an open debate. Anyway this Malibu school has their own wimpy cheerleading squad led by Catalina’s wimpy new step sister Sky (Holland Roden) who begs Catalina to get them into shape. She agrees but must bring a couple of her East L.A. homegirls in the saucy Isabel (Vanessa Born) and ghetto-fab Treyvonetta (Gabrielle Dennis). There are actually people named Treyvonetta. I googled it.

You know the deal. There’s a boy, this boy happens to be the bitches brother to add a little conflict into the mix, the heroine slaps her squad into shape which leads to a big cheerleading contest at the close versus the queen bitches squad and we’re not going to spoil it for you who wins. I want it to be a big ol’ surprise!

There are times when watching this fifth ‘Bring it On’ movie that it actually becomes painful. This pain usually comes when words are exiting out of the mouths of the stock stereotypical characters that fill this movie. It is mind numbing how horrible some of this dialog, that somebody I know worked really hard to write, is used in this movie. Then there was the offensiveness of it all that I’m thinking one is going to have to overcome as well. I mean I know that the characters of Avery and Kayla are supposed to be insensitive bitches and all but perhaps they went a tad to far to illustrate this point. Seriously, how many ‘back to barrio’ and ‘taco bell’ and ‘ghetto’ attacks can you levy at somebody before you get cut? I get it, they’re bitches… bring it down. And it wasn’t like our heroines were much better as they dusted off every Latin female stereotype in the book for their respective characters. But then that third ‘Bring it On’ movie was pretty much the same way, in reverse, with all the ‘White Girl’, ‘Snow Flake’ attacks on Hayden Penetierre. So I guess is just the way these movies go.

Ahh… but it’s all about grown women dressed in high school cheerleading costumes showing spirit! And in that small regard ‘Bring it On: Fight to the Finish’ is a smashing success. Director Bille Woodruff directs his movie like his ass was on fire and keeps it moving, motoring as fast past those horrible dialog sequences to bring up yet another much needed dance number to get that taste out of our mouths. I gotta tell you though, if I had a high school aged daughter and she was dancing in the way these mature high school girls were dancing in front of a crowd of a couple of thousand, I don’t think I’d be a happy dad. The only thing missing were the poles.

So you know… it is what it is. It’s a ‘Bring it On’ movie. We will opt to miss ‘Bring it on 6: Dancin’ and Prancin’ but we will be back on board for ‘Bring it on 7: Back in the Action’. Simply Outstanding. I wonder how those cheerleader outfits are fitting Dushku, Union and Dunst right about now.