Kirsten Dunst (Drop Dead Gorgeous) stars as TorranceShipman, an impossibly perky high school girl who’s thrilled to bits when she inherits the captaincy of her school’s award-winning cheer-leading squad.

However, with the state trials looming, Torrance suddenly discovers all their ‘moves’ have been stolen from an impoverished inner-city team, and with the help of new girl Missy Pantone ( Eliza Dushku), she sets about teaching the squad a whole new routine in time for the national competition.

This was a surprise hit in the States, although it is unlikely to repeat that success here.

While there is no doubting the appeal of both Dunst and Dushku (not to mention the obvious allure for ‘Buffy’ fans of seeing ‘Faith’ in a cheer-leader’s outfit), this is sadly nowhere near funny enough to succeed as a comedy, nor serious enough to work as a drama.

It is also unforgivably boring in places, with a horribly mawkish script that does it no favours, apart from one or two amusing lines.

That said, the cheer-leading sequences are handled well and display an infectious sense of physicality (girls being hurled into the air, and so on)

The only problem is that these scenes ‘peak too early’, meaning that by the time the finals arrive, you’ve already seen the impressive routines in the qualifiers.
And, while, to be fair, there are SOME funny scenes (the auditions, the choreographer), you know you’re in trouble when the biggest laugh in the film comes from a fart gag…