American Girls 4: La guerre des blondes

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

Carson (Ashley Benson) leads the West Coast Sharks against her nemesis Brooke (Cassie Scerbo) and the East Coast Jets. Jets have won three years in a row. The Jets are precise while the Sharks are daring. Carson falls for flirtatious Penn (Michael Copon) who turns out to be a Jet. The Sharks are given the Spirit Stick but somebody steals it. The rivals get into an off-campus cheer off resulting in many injuries. To field a complete team, they have to combine forces and work together.

Ashley Benson is a fine actress but Hilary Duff lite actually hurts. I like Michael Copon's brash arrogance. Ashley Tisdale has a small cameo. The rest of the cast is either forgettable or simply bad. The adult characters are beyond bland. The writing isn't helping anyone either. The superficial referencing of West Side Story only gives a veneer of respectability. This is a former interesting franchise that has gone to straight-to-video hell.

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.

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.

MGA decided after putting people through the pain of three Bring It On movies, to make a fourth one. Apparently after trying three times the people at MGA think that they will get it right a fourth time; I think not.

Not any different than the other three movies this one takes place in Florida at the National East Coast cheer leading championship, where the mighty East Coast Jets compete with their rival team, the sharks. The Jets new captain Carson, played by Ashley Benson is the most "focused" on the team until she meets Penn (played by Michael Capon) and she loses this "focus"- if there was any. Little did Carson know that her Prince Charming was on the Sharks cheer squad. The teams ended up having to work together because of people on both squads getting injured during the passing of the spirit stick.

The writer and the director of this movie should seriously be fired for even considering being a part of this project. After three movies of Bring It On people would think that they would stop the attempt at making these movies. I cannot even begin to comprehend as to why people like these movies.

What's bad about this movie is has the same plot as the other three Bring It on movies, there is nothing original about it. It reminds me of every other teen movie that is in the market. The directors and writers need to come up with something different if they want to make more money.

If I wanted to go see girls be promiscuous and to backstab one another I would go to my old school, and not spend money on a DVD that isn't worth the 90 minutes.