BRING IT ON (FILM)

'''Bring It On''' (2000) is a film about a high school cheerleading squad, starring Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Gabrielle Union. It was directed by Peyton Reed and written by Jessica Bendinger.
A straight to video sequel ''Bring It On Again'' was released in 2003, sharing only producers with the original. A third film entitled '' was another direct-to-video sequel released in late 2006. A fourth film, tentatively titled '', is currently in production.

Contents

Plot summary

Cast

Box office

Locations

Trivia

External links

Plot summary

The Rancho Carne High School cheerleading squad "The Toros" are aiming for their sixth consecutive national championship title. Big Red, their team captain, is graduating and Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) is elected to take her place.
The movie begins with Torrance Shipman entering a car with her boyfriend Aaron, who explains that the transition from high school to college is going to be a difficult one. Meanwhile, a new male student, Cliff Pantone (Jesse Bradford), joins Torrance's class and takes a seat next to her. Although he is teased by two of the school's football players with the 'loser sneeze', he retaliates and Torrance immediately takes a liking to him.
During an after school practice for Regionals, a girl injures herself and is taken to the hospital, forcing the team to hold auditions for a new member. All the applicants turn out to be complete failures, some even turning out to sing and do ballet. Whitney is positive her younger sister Jamie would be perfect for the team as she is light and can be thrown easily. When Jamie auditions, Whitney and her friend Courtney are impressed, but the others are less so.
When the next applicant, Missy (Eliza Dushku), walks in, the girls don't appear to like her from her appearance and quickly find reasons to get her out of the gym. They say that tattoos are strictly forbidden but Missy reveals that the tattoo on her arm was drawn on when she was bored in period 4. Missy explains that she's trying out because cheerleading is the closest thing she could find to gymnastics, since the school doesn't have a gymnastics team. Whitney makes a great effort to force her to leave by telling her to complete a series of gymnastics skills which Missy successfully executes, amazing the rest of the crew. Torrance is especially impressed but before she can say anything, Missy storms out, realizing that she is unwanted there.
Later, Torrance shows up at Missy's house. She is surprised when Cliff opens the door, and learns that Missy and Cliff are siblings. Eventually, Torrance convinces Missy to join the team and they soon become best friends while Torrance's liking of Cliff grows.
When Missy shows up to practice and watches and hears the routines, she storms out once again. Angry at the thought of her hand-picked candidate behaving unprofessionally, Torrance confronts her. Missy says that the cheers the Toros do were ripped off, but Torrance argues that that is not true. To prove otherwise, Missy then drives Torrance to a run-down part of Los Angeles, where Torrance is stunned to see another cheerleading squad, the East Compton Clovers, perform the exact same routine as theirs. When the Clovers confront her and Missy, Torrance learns that Big Red has been coming to the Clovers' performances and stealing all their moves.
The Toros need to put together a new routine quickly, but are struggling to come up with ideas. Torrance calls Aaron for support, but he doesn't pick up. When he does, it is revealed that he is cheating on Torrance without her knowing. He refers the team to a professional choreographer named Sparky Pulastri, who teaches the team a new routine. Things seem okay until the Regionals competition, when the Toros find out that another team have exactly the same routine as theirs. Just before their routine, Torrance spots Aaron and Cliff sitting behind one another and she waves at them. When Aaron blows her a kiss, she kisses back and Cliff, thinking that the kiss is meant for him, smiles to himself. After their copied routine, an official informs Torrance that Sparky was a scam artist who was teaching the same routine to various groups up and down the West Coast, but as the Toros are the current champions they are guaranteed a place in order to defend the title.
Torrance is approached by Big Red who screams at her for ruining the team's chances and claims she was a better team captain, then storms off. Torrance is then approached by Aaron who gives her a big hug but suggests that maybe she should hand over the captaincy to another team mate. Angry, Torrance walks off.
When Torrance walks into the gym the next day, Courtney and Whitney walk by her side and talk to her about stepping down from being captain. They announce to the group that they would pull out of this year's Nationals as they wouldn't be able to get a routine done in time. Torrance doesn't agree and convinces the team that they will do whatever it takes to win Nationals. She realizes that Aaron has sold her out and she confronts him at his dorm where she finds out that he is sleeping with another girl and breaks up with him.
Meanwhile, the Clovers have to pull out of Nationals as they couldn't raise enough money, but Torrance, who is determined to compete against them, gets her dad's company to sponsor them.
However, the team leader of the Clovers, Isis (Gabrielle Union), rips up the check saying she doesn't need Torrance's money and would rather the Clovers raise it themselves. They do end up raising it by appealing to a popular television talk show host ("Pauletta", based on Oprah Winfrey) who gladly sponsors them as part of the 'Wish Day' portion of her show.
Nationals day finally arrives but before the Clovers and the Toros complete their routines, Torrance approaches Isis to try and make up for things. She tells her to tell her team to not step out of bounds but Isis seems to ignore her. After a few seconds, Isis turns around and yells to her team to not go out of bounds, possibly realizing that her rival team has had more experience. Isis also tells Torrance that one of her girls was half a second early on all her moves while practicing the routine.
After all the routines are performed, with exceptional ones from Clovers and Toros, the judges have the results. In second place are the 5 time - reigning National champion, the Toros. They are disappointed at first but soon begin to cheer. First place goes to the Clovers and the Toros clap in admiration.
Torrance and Isis make up and end up becoming friends.
When Cliff walks up to Torrance and Missy, Missy leaves them alone and Torrance finally kisses Missy's brother.
At the end of the movie, the credits are accompanied by the cast lip syncing the popular cheerleading song, Mickey, performed by B
★ Witched.

Cast

★ Kirsten Dunst as Torrance Shipman

★ Eliza Dushku as Missy Pantone

★ Jesse Bradford as Cliff Pantone

★ Gabrielle Union as Isis

★ Clare Kramer as Courtney Egbert

★ Nicole Bilderback as Whitney

★ Tsianina Joelson as Darcy

★ Rini Bell as Kasey

★ Nathan West as Jan

★ Huntley Ritter as Leslie

★ Shamari Fears as Lava

★ Natina Reed as Jenelope

★ Brandi Williams as Lafred

★ Lindsay Sloane as Big Red

★ Bianca Kajlich as Carver

★ Holmes Osborne as Bruce Shipman

★ Sherry Hursey as Christine Shipman

★ Cody McMains as Justin Shipman

★ Carla Mackauf as Arron's Girlfriend (at college)

★ Ian Roberts as Sparky Polastri

Box office

The film earned USD$17,362,105 in 2,380 theaters in its opening weekend. The film went on to gross $68,379,000 in the U.S. and an additional $22,070,929 in other countries for a total gross of $90,449,929.

Locations

The movie was filmed at locations around San Diego. The field shots were filmed at Torrey Pines High School, in the Carmel Valley area of San Diego. The East Compton High School gym scenes were filmed at Kearny High School and the Academy of Our Lady of Peace. The locker room and scoreboard scenes were shot at Mt. Carmel High School. The exterior shots of Rancho Carne High School were mainly filmed at San Diego State University. The stands and field at the Toros game was shot at Eastlake High School.The NCA's were shot in Oceanside, California next to the pier.

Trivia

★ Most of the cheerleaders from the movie were actually professional cheerleaders.

★ Carla Mackauf, who plays Aaron's college girlfriend ("You were a cheerleader?") is a real-life member of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad.

★ Missy's standing back handspring back tuck and the following tumbling sequence during her first scene are the only moves that the actors/actresses didn't perform themselves.

★ Both Clare Kramer (Courtney) and Eliza Dushku (Missy) played powerful enemies on the hit TV series ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''. Clare Kramer played Glory, the powerful demon god and Eliza Dushku played Faith, the rogue vampire slayer. Nicole Bilderback (Whitney) also appeared as one of the Cordettes in an episode (as well as the unaired pilot). There is a reference to this TV series when one of the cheerleaders says "Let's beat these Buffys down."

★ The three Clover Cheerleaders: Lava (Shamari Fears), Jenelope (Natina Reed), and LaFred ('Brandi Williams' ) are all members of the singing trio Blaque. They sing the song "As If" which is on the movie's soundtrack.

★ The cheerleaders attend Rancho Carne High School. The name, in Spanish, translates to "meat farm".

★ Many of the stunts featured in the movie were illegal at the high school level.

★ As the confrontation with the Clovers ends in Compton, one of them comments "You've been touched by an Angel, girl!" while pointing at Torrance (Kirsten Dunst). Dunst famously appeared on Touched by an Angel in 1996 and indeed was touched.

★ Blaque made their big movie debut on Bring It On & could be heard on its soundtrack with 2 verisons of "As If" (One version with Joey Fatone) & "Bring It All To Me" (Remix Featuring JC Chasez).

★ The song that Cliff plays on his guitar is "Anarchy in the U.K." by The Sex Pistols. Jesse Bradford is an accomplished guitar player in real-life.

★ This movie ranked number 30 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.)

External links

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★ Interview with Peyton Reed about the film

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★ ''Bring It On'' Filming locations