In any industry you try to do things cheaper and faster for the consumer so you can compete with the guy across the street. Whether you're operating a laundromat, barber shop, pizza place, grocery store, or you're a major conglomerate with a movie studio as one of your holdings, you try to cut back on costs and boost your profits. It's competition the American way.
So what on Earth does that have to do with a sequel to a movie about cheerleaders? Well, in movies it's no different. Only here that theorem backfired: Once you have a smash hit of a film, it's your job, as a producer, to capitalize off that film's success by seeing if you can duplicate that success with a leaner and more improved product. You cut the budget, higher a second rate screenwriter, cast B-list talent, skimp on the shooting schedule which means the director and DP don't have time to setup much needed shots, which also means there isn't enough money to higher all extra material and personnel that made your first film such a huge success. Result; a film that has all of the earmarks of the previous feature, but lacks meat and its own legs to stand on. There are exceptions to that rule, but they're rare.
So it is with "Bring it on Again", a story about a cheerleader who arrives at some no-name state college, finds herself ostracized after being associated with the wrong crowd, and now has to fight (cheer?) her way back into the hearts and minds of her peers to ultimate cheer- leading triumph.
It's a cheap sequel meant to capitalize off of Peyton Reed's very entertaining high school genre film of four years before, but the social schism being addressed is never fully explored, the plot is pretty outrageous and borders on the realms of science fiction, poor Anne Judson-Yager is in over her head without any real direction from 3rd string director Damon Santostefano, and overall the cast and crew aren't there to relive nor re-imagine the previous tale. No score, little to basic editing (essentially strewing together master shots), essentially no magic whatsoever save for the cheer-leading itself which seems okay (though I'm no expert in that area).
Pass it up. Me, after donating my special edition "Bring It On" DVD to the library many years ago, I went ahead and blew some money on a three movie repackage deal that included the original film and two of its sequels, of which this film was one. Eh... it's ten bucks that could've gone into my gas tank. That's how I see it.
Watch at your own risk.
p.s. I wonder what Roger Coreman would've done with this script.
