Bring It On (2000) |
BUY IT |
General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer-Rain Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Peyton Reed (Director) Featurette-Spotlight on Location Deleted Scenes-with Director's introductions Featurette-Wardrobe and Make-Up Tests Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Home Movie of the Car Wash Scene Music Video-As If - Blaque Biographies-Cast & Crew Easter Egg-Photo Gallery with Director's Introduction |
|
Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2000 | ||
Running Time | 94:27 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (65:52) | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Peyton Reed |
Studio
Distributor |
Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Kirsten Dunst Eliza Dushku Jesse Bradford Gabrielle Union |
Case | C-Button-Version 2 | ||
RPI | $34.95 | Music | Christophe Beck |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (320Kb/s) |
|
Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
|
||
Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes, bloopers and playing around |
There have been two stand-out comedies made in this genre in the last few years: one is a loose interpretation of The Taming of The Shrew called 10 Things I Hate About You, while the other is a cheerleader movie called Bring It On. As the director of Bring It On points out in his commentary, cheerleaders are highly stereotyped characters; for some reason cheerleader movies involve either psychopaths with sharp instruments, or pornography. If you were looking for either, keep looking - this movie is rated M, and it doesn't really push the limits of that category.
Bring It On is a comedy dealing with a crisis - Kirsten Dunst has just been appointed captain of the Rancho Carne (yes, that translates to "Meat Ranch") High School cheerleading team, and in her first practice she injures one of the squad by attempting "the most difficult pyramid known to cheerleading, and mankind". She must replace that squad member before the Regional Cheerleading competition. Considering that she's about to lead the squad into defence of their National Cheerleading title, this is important; after all, they have won the last five Nationals. Fortunately or unfortunately, the replacement turns out to know something no one else in the squad knew - their winning routines have been stolen from another team. Throw in some boyfriend problems, some awesome gymnastics and cheerleading sequences, and a lot of laughs, and you have the entire plot of the movie. No, it is not high art, but it is a lot of fun.
Most of the cheerleaders in this film are real cheerleaders. The actors, who were chosen for their fitness, were sent to intensive training to learn enough not to put themselves at risk (I'm not kidding - you could get seriously injured trying some of those stunts without training). It is quite impressive to see the actors doing a lot of the cheerleading moves.
For heterosexual males, I should point out that this movie contains lots of shots of beautiful young women in skimpy outfits, including the essential girls' locker room scene, and the obligatory gratuitous bikini car wash scene. I think those guys are convinced. For the rest of the guys, I should point out that at least one of the male cheerleaders is openly gay, and some of the male cheerleaders are quite impressively muscular. For the ladies in the audience, I'd like to mention that there are several strong female roles, a decent plot, and an unfaithful male gets a suitable comeuppance (are they convinced yet?). For the parents, I can happily say that there's nothing in this movie that you are likely to be too concerned about your teenager seeing. And for the teenagers, I can suggest that this is one movie you might actually enjoy watching, even with the parents in the room. Have I covered everyone yet?
This movie is not overly long - just over an hour and a half. Even with the excellent transfer, that leaves quite a bit of space on the disc. This is the first feature film made by Peyton Reed; he has previously directed a series of "behind the scenes" featurettes. Strangely enough, this disc is filled up with all sorts of extras, including a "behind the scenes" featurette, deleted scenes (introduced by the director), extended scenes (introduced by the director), and a commentary (by the director)...
The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, making it look fabulous on a widescreen display, and giving only narrow black bars on an older TV. The original aspect ratio was 1.85:1, and I have no problem with the slight adjustment of aspect ratio.
The picture is quite sharp and clear. On some of the close-ups you can almost count the eyelashes. Shadow detail is excellent. There is no low-level noise, although there are very few black patches that would show it. There were a couple of shots that were a teeny bit soft, but I suspect this was an issue of focus in the original source material.
Colour is beautifully saturated - a necessity with the brightly coloured costumes they wear. Our heroes, the Rancho Carne Toros, wear costumes that are predominantly red. The most common colour to show colour bleed is red - there is not a trace of colour bleeding to be seen.
There are no film artefacts to be seen. No MPEG artefacts. And, which surprised me, no aliasing to speak of. Normally I'd expect a transfer this sharp to show aliasing - I didn't note any.
The disc is single sided, dual layer (RSDL), with the layer change at 65:52. I hate to say it, but the layer change is not perfect. If they'd placed it a fraction of a second later it would have been invisible. As it is, there is a closing door that freezes for a moment. This is one thing that the Region 1 disc does better - the layer change on the R1 is close to imperceptible.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
There are only two soundtracks on this disc - the main soundtrack in English Dolby Digital 5.1, and the Director's Commentary is in English Dolby Digital 2.0. I listened to both.
Dialogue is clear at all times. One or two words in the cheers are a little unclear, but that's understandable.
In addition to the songs (I didn't count them, but the Director's Commentary suggests there are fifty songs used) there is a score by Christophe Beck. I was a bit surprised to see that, because the only other place I'd seen (OK, heard) his work before was on Buffy The Vampire Slayer - he did the music for about half of the episodes in Season 2. He has done a good job on this movie, with a score that starts off rather techno, but evolves as the movie continues - a bit hard to describe, but good stuff.
The primary soundtrack is 5.1 for good reason. The surrounds are used to great effect. One nice example comes when we see a cut from a scene in a gym, where there's a cheerleading routine going on, to a reverse, showing Kirsten Dunst watching the performance - the sound of the performance switches to the surrounds. Very effective.
There's a lot of rhythm in this soundtrack, and the bass extends well into the low octaves. The subwoofer is working almost continuously, supporting the sound without being obtrusive.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video quality is excellent.
The audio quality is superb.
The extras are good, and there are lots of them.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-737, using Component output |
Display | Sony VPL-VW10HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics matte white screen with a gain of 1.0 (280cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE |
Speakers | Front Left and Right: Krix Euphonix, Centre: Krix KDX-C Rears: Krix KDX-M, Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5 |