If you are like most Kirsten Dunst fans, then you have probably seen this film a few times, bought the DVD, perhaps watched the special features and commentary. Perhaps then you went on to watch the movie again with the French language option selected*. One day you may find yourself watching the locker room scene in slow motion when it will hit you like a ton of bricks!
This movie has a lot of plot holes in it!
Lets start off with the standard teen film problems. These are common to nearly all teen films, in fact they are more like genre rules than plot holes. But lets go over them anyway, just in case you are unfamiliar with the genre.
Everyone is full of money, and the high school age kids all have new cars (except Cliff, who has a classic car, which is common for "cool" characters).
No one has parents except for the main character. Try going back a watching a few other teen films, you will probably notice this rule, only the main character has parents, never anyone else.
None of the characters have part time jobs of any kind.
And of course, the final one, everyone looks and acts like they are in their mid twenties.
Now that we got those out of the way, lets start moving onto the more specific plot holes in this film, of which there are many.
First (but not foremost), neither Cheerleading squad has a teacher as a sponsor. Most schools won't even let you have a chess club without a teacher as a sponsor, yet the 5 time National Cheerleading Champions have no adult supervision whatsoever, and neither do their rivals.
This film does some very strange things with sports seasons. At the beginning of the school year it is supposed to be Football season, which it is, until they visit East Compton. Apparently it is Basketball season there. But when they come back to their normal school it is Football season again. Football and Basketball are not played at the same time in High School.
Speaking of sports seasons, apparently the football season lasts all year long at their school, because they practice at a football game 3 weeks before the National Championships (which are in May).
Any Varsity Cheerleading squad is going to have a 50 percent turnover each year, as half the squad graduates. Yet in "Bring It On" they show the squad at the end of one year, and then at the start of the next. The only people who graduate are "Big Red" and "Aaron". The squad shown the next school year is all the exact same people, with no new ones added.
Now, I am not sure how big of a deal stealing routines actually is. But I remember watching the cheerleaders a lot back when I was in high school, and the cheerleaders from the other schools mostly did the same cheers as the ones from my own school. In fact, I attended a high school basketball game tonight at a small private school, and the cheerleaders there (both teams), were doing cheers that I remembered seeing in high school a decade ago.
But that is OK, because "Big Red" couldn't have possibly stolen those cheers in the first place. High school sporting events are held on fairly regular schedules, yet "Big Red" had time to make a bunch of three hour drives (each way) to videotape the East Compton games. She simply couldn't have done that because she would have been cheering at a game for her own school whenever East Compton had a game.
Then there are a bunch of minor problems. Like "Cliff" getting the loser sneeze, he seemed a bit too cool to have had that happen to him (and why in the hell did the teacher announce him as new, the film had made it out to be the first day of school). It seems that Aaron left for college on a day that Torrance already had classes at high school, which was kind of strange. Cliff is also a pretty remarkable guy, because he managed to somehow make a very professional sounding song for Torrance, despite the fact that he had already shown how questionable his guitar skills were (and then there is the part where his voice changes into someone elses after the rest of the band comes in on the song).
Now in closing, I will leave you with the funniest part of the entire movie, which is a brief snippet of conversation between Torrance and her little brother Justin.
It's not my fault you're in love with a big gay cheerleader
Who won't return your phone calls.
Aaron is not gay!
Oh, so someone just made him become a cheerleader?
He's just...busy!
Yeah. Busy scamming on guys.
*If you have the DVD, watch it in French, trust me on this one.
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