American Girls 4: La guerre des blondes

the first was still the best. this movie reminded me of grease and high school musical....... cheer battles in the street, people doing flips and jumping off light poles!! been done and this movie was over the top. Not to mention all of the sexual comments, i don't think kids would get them, but they're there plenty. This movie would appeal to teenagers but I would not let them watch due to the sexual content. The acting was poor and a lot of the lines are cheesy. There are way too many so called messages that you get lost trying to follow them. I would not willingly watch this movie again or recommend this movie to anyone.

Released to video in 2007 and directed by Steve Rash, "Bring it On: In it to Win it" is a high school dramedy/sports flick starring Ashley Benson and Cassandra Scerbo as Carson and Brooke, the captains of two rival cheerleading teams, the West Coast Sharks and the East Coast Jets respectively. They meet at Camp Spirit-Thunder in Florida for the championship, but Carson's romance with a male cheerleader of the Jets (Michael Copon) throws a wrench into the proceedings. Everything falls apart when the rival squads engage in a cheer-rumble where half their teammates sustain injuries that remove both the Sharks and the Jets from competition. What will they do?

"In it to Win it" is the fourth movie in the franchise. The others are "Bring it On" (2000), "Bring it On Again" (2004), "Bring it On: All or Nothing" (2006) and "Bring it On: Fight to the Finish" (2009). The first movie was the only one that was theatrically released and is therefore the most polished in the series as far as overall production quality. This perhaps explains why I couldn't get past the 50-minute mark of "In it to Win it" the first time I tried to watch it, but I decided to give it another chance and am glad I did because the first half is just a build-up to the nigh genius of the second half. While the first half is kinetic fun, it lacks dramatic depth and therefore becomes a bore by the mid-point, but the second half fleshes out the great characters and everything clicks for an amusing high school dramedy/ sports flick.

What distinguishes "In it to Win it" is that the entire movie takes place at the national cheer camp, which is parallel to a huge amusement park; as such, there are no high school sequences. In the first half you'll role your eyes at the stereotypes, but the second half pulls the rug out from underneath your presumptions with a great "confession" sequence. Highlights include the semi-homage to the renowned "West Side Story," the great cast, the smart amusement, the energetic tone and some amazing cheer routines, not to mention Ashley Tisdale's hit song during the credits. "In it to Win it" also has better women than the first movie, although not as good as "All or Nothing" (featuring Hayden Panettiere and Danielle Savre).

Speaking of the "great cast," they're essentially no-names, but they deliver the goods as a nice assortment of characters that you come to understand and like over the course of the story. Beyond the cast noted above, the top ones are Noel Areizaga (the gay Shark), Jennifer Tisdale (curvy white Jet), Kierstin Koppel (the Goth Shark) and Anniese Taylor Dendy (black shark with seemingly ghetto edge).

The film runs 90 minutes and was shot at Universal Studios Florida, Universal Orlando Resort.

GRADE: B

I'm a big fan of cheerleader movies, so I looked forward to watching this film. Overall I would say it isn't as good as the previous sequel (Bring it on: All or Nothing), but it does have a few things to say for itself.

The characters are very likable and the acting is good, there are some particularly fun moments to watch, however the script is weak and the finale doesn't have the same WOW factor as previous attempts in the franchise.

It felt like the director was far too busy trying to reference other films than concentrate on this one. The plot is very slow at the mid way point and drags into a disappointing finale.

Those things aside, there isn't a great amount of 'we've seen this all before' so fans of the franchise will probably enjoy it, but perhaps not as much as the other films. If the next film in the franchise has a little less pep and a little more plot, it could be quite good.

After "Bring it on: All or nothing" I was more or less sure that I had seen everything there was to see about cheerleading, and when I heard that there was to be yet another Bring it on -movie I was very skeptic to the idea. It seemed to me that the Bring it on -franchise was turning into a modern Rocky/Rambo-franchise for teens: You think it's over, but then there's another one and another one and another one... often with deteriorating over all -quality as a result. To test my hypothesis I decided to watch "Bring it on: In it to win it".

As suspected the storyline was simple, nothing too surprising. There was the usual conflict between two teams, two girls fighting and the usual "wrong" hottie and the amazing final routine. It seems to me that there is a pattern in choosing actors for the Bring it on -movies. Bring it on 1 and 3 starred fairly famous actors/actresses (Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Bradford and Hayden Panettiere), while Bring it on 2 and 4 had (at least to me) fairly unknown actors/actresses. The good thing about casting relatively unknown actors/actresses is that they just might surprise you, as Cassie Scerbo (Brooke) did. Her sassy, sarcastic attitude, combined with her constant applying of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" -principles to her methods with which to destroy Carson's (Ashley Benson) squad, was very impressive.

All in all, I found "Bring it on: In it to win it" fairly amusing, and by far better than "Bring it on Again", which I regard as an all time low. The rivalry between the two squads is much like the one in the previous Bring it on -movie, and as usual the final routine was something special. As I live in a country where cheerleading is not such a serious or popular sport, I found it interesting and entertaining to watch this movie, even though I'm sure a lot is over-exaggerated.

I'd recommend this movie if you want something light and funny to watch on with your friends, but if you want something deep and thoughtful with acting that should get an Oscar... watch something else.

Rating: 6/10

I have seen all four of the Bring It On Movies and this was by far the worst one yet. The actress who plays Carson was the best in the movie and the other girls were barely tolerable to watch... a waste of a trip to blockbuster if you ask me.

The plot is set out to be a modern day version of The West Side story, with the two sides coming together to succeed in the end. But bad acting, writing and costumes (these girls are young, but having them wearing two small of shorts resulting in "muffin top" is ridiculous) ruins the movie in the end. No wonder it was a straight to DVD film. Jennifer Tisdale should be ashamed of herself for choosing a part in this movie. She is too old to be playing the high school cheerleader ditz. It might be time to move onto a new career and leave the success to her little sister.