Five cute A Squad cheerleaders, who add a sixth along the way, show that, despite being made of Sugar & Spice, when one of their sisters is in need, they are willing to do the deed. So, perhaps that first sentence was a little on the cute side. But that’s about the level of this movie: very cute and not very demanding.
Marley Shelton, who must have been thrilled to be still playing a teenage character at age 27, is the captain of the group and she gets her dream, having the gorgeous quarterback/most popular guy in school fall for her. Only he (James Marsden, who must have signed on to play this doofus before getting the Cyclops role in x_men) knocks her up just before the junior prom so when the tell the folks they’re getting married and keeping the baby, the ignorant parents kick them out. They get an apartment, jobs (she in a supermarket bank branch, he in a video store), and stay in school. Flash forward to the next school year–the movie does without any kind of indication–and Shelton has realized that they just aren’t going to make it.
Then she has an epiphany: her and the girls will rob a bank. One of the other cheerleaders, played by Mena Suvari (and yes, this is well after American Beauty and American Pie), has a mom she’s never met doing life in the joint for killing Suvari’s father. Well, one less than tearful visit later and the girls have gotten all the instruction needed from mom’s pals. They need guns–but not bullets–and lucky for them, since they don’t have the cash for the guns, the dealer has a good looking daughter who’s pining to be a cheerleader. Fern joins the squad, the squad gets the guns.
One last gift from mom in jail, a set of Betty doll masks, and the girls are off to their one-time entry into the life of crime. Everything, mainly, goes well, they get home with piles of cash and a cute bassinet for the mom-to-be. Except…Lisa (The Practice’s Marla Sokoloff), a B Squad cheerleader, is in the supermarket and realizes that the robbers are her rivals.Faster than you can say “Cheerleader captains can’t be seven months pregnant with twins,” Lisa is the new A Squad captain and the alibi for her new pals. The big twist, from the genius word processor of Mandy Nelson, is that the whole movie is being told by Lisa, in flashback, to the FBI while the A Squad sits in a cell. Until she coughs up, at the very end, the alibi.
I guess teen movies are generally supposed to be “fun” and “cute” and not too concerned about taking adult viewers like me on an emotional journey. They are cute, the girls run around in skimpy cheerleading outfits and sometimes just bras and panties (even the ultra-Christian one), and come out ahead in the end. I guess I was expecting a little something more from a movie written, directed (Francine McDougall), and produced (Wendy Finerman) by three women.
Neutral: not bad for a teen comedy but not great either
BillSaysThis 