Vivre son rêve

Tuba (Cyrina Fiallo) has always wanted to be a cheerleader. She is an anonymous band geek playing the tuba. Her best friend is sarcastic Emerson (Stacey Farber). Her brother Marshall (Brett Dier) is the star basketball player. His girlfriend Andi (Rachel Skarsten) is the arrogant head cheerleader. When a cheerleader gets hurt, Tuba signs up to try out for the squad. Marshall fears family embarrassment. Andi hopes to drive her away by training and pushing the uncoordinated Tuba over the edge. They end up finding common ground. Second in command Tiffany (Ashley Leggat) tries to take over the squad.

This is standard high school drama with a couple of differences. The head cheerleader actually has a heart of gold deep inside, very deep inside. Her turn is really the major saving grace and something different from the usual trope. On the other hand, there are some awkward turns. The lead girl Cyrina has the dorky look but she doesn't really outshine as needed. The cheerleader competition drags on a little too long and it ends up slowing down the final act. This has some merits and it's a close call.

Made...the Movie is not a terrible effort, it's just not a very satisfying one to sit through, and that's a pity because it had the potential to be a decent TV movie.

There are quite a few problems with the movie as a whole, the main problem is that it tried to incorporate a variety of themes and didn't succeed in any, leaving an underdeveloped product.

In movies like these the main character is always defined as the underdog, or the anti-teen hero, someone the common person can empathize with and root for. But here the main character comes off as really pathetic. She's in a band but she can't really play that well or create good lyrics, she dreams of being a cheerleader but is clumsy and inept at routines. I guess this is down to the writer(s) fault for a poorly written and scripted main character.

There are hardly any laughable moments in what should have been a light hearted teen school comedy. In fact the only time I did laugh was when the principal of the school did his part. 5 minutes worth. The rest of the supporting cast weren't that great with plenty of stereotypical roles.

But the movie isn't all doom and gloom. There were some moments when I felt that there was hope. I liked that the story seemed to take a different direction. The head cheerleader takes the fledgling main character under wing with the intent to break her spirit but things don't turn out the way she planned and she starts to wonder. Without giving anything else away I thought that this was a good touch and if the story had gone along in the way it would have been a much better movie. But it didn't deviate from it's intended and formulaic path.

Performance wise the two main characters were decent. The girl who played the head cheerleader, Andi, had all the qualities that you'd want to hate in a typical spoilt, hottest girl in the school sort of way but she does surprise you. The girl who played Tuba was okay- she didn't really rise above the script to give the character any real life or zest, apart from wanting to be a cheerleader. The rest of the cast was pretty forgettable.

Bandslam, a similar movie, while not brilliant was better than Made because it provided proper characters that you could root for. Sure they were mostly lame nerds but they weren't complete losers like Tuba pretty much is.

If you're a die-hard fans of high school teen movies, whether good or bad, then watch Made...The Movie and make up your own mind. Otherwise you can skip this one for something that will provide more laughs or sobering moments.