This delightful comedy uses its ostensible theme of cheerleading rivalry to comment on its own genre, the teen movie. Given a genuinely exciting reinvention by 'Clueless', and reaching a peak with the likes of 'American Pie' and '10 Things I hate about you', the genre is in danger, as all successful genres are, of exchanging its wit, visual exuberance, engaging playing and agreeable sentiment for cash-hungry formulae and all-round laziness.

'Bring it on' falls into neither of these traps, but is aware that its genre is exhausting itself, and raises a number of pertinent issues. do filmmakers, like the Toro cheerleaders, continue their success by ripping off others' tricks? Is it possible to be original any more, or is the best we can hope for a clever spin on older, wider sources (this, of course, applies to cinema and all art in general)? Most pertinent, and 'Road Block' had already touched on this, is it time we jettisoned the toothy, white, middle-class young, and their oh-so-harrowing traumas, and allow a more representative teen demographic into the tacitly racist genre?

'Bring it on' may not entirely escape this last accusation - the black cheerleaders have no real humanity of their own, we are not given the same insight into their backgrounds and personalities as the white girls, beyond catch-all under-privilege. They are a mirror in which the whites can examine their complacency or flaws and correct them - literally so in many scenes, where the whites 'reflect' the blacks' movements, and the latter distort them in return, thereby commenting on them.

However, this touchy racial subject matter has a major benefit on the narrative arc. The plot is the old stand-by: a team of underdogs against the odds, triumph against circumstances and expectations. This would be tiresomely formulaic, except there are two teams in the film with equal claims on our attention and sympathies - it would be unthinkable for a Hollywood film today to have poor black people lose against pampered whites, but every stylistic decision - the humanising of characters; the rites of passage and socialising-of-misfits narrative; screen-time etc. - favours these whites. This creates a genuine tension, added to little asides (such as Torrence's brother's T-shirt, 'Cheerleading = Death') that make a familiar narrative interesting, problematic and unpredictable.

This is not to deny the familiar pleasures of the genre - the beautiful, clothes-shy young stars (the film gets to leer and satirise such leering!); the witty dialogue and bitchiness; the screenplay sharp about traditional issues of power and community; revelatory, stylised dreams and memories; the unforced energy. 'Bring it on' is a rare instance in the last few decades of a musical, and the various cheerleading routines are exhilerating and inventive, revealing to many a hitherto hidden purpose of a much maligned group, while still retaining the right to tongue-hollow that cheek. (AND a Shakespearean finale, where the actors come back after the curtain, and show us it was all play).

One would expect a cheerleader movie to be an empty one. "Bring It On" turns out to be a more creative one. Basically, it shows how the girl appointed captain of the cheerleaders discovers that their act is stolen and she tries to make amends. The movie does have some low humor and other things that we expect in these movies - i.e., the bikini scene - but it's a good movie. A subtle look at the theft of African-American culture by white people (essentially the story of rock 'n' roll; "Dreamgirls" focused on this). In the meantime, "Glee" presents another look at cheerleaders.

PS: a scene in 2001's "Not Another Teen Movie" parodied this movie.

Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) is voted the new captain of the Toro cheerleading squad at San Diego's Rancho Carne High School taking over from Big Red (Lindsay Sloane). After Carver is injured, she picks rebellious gymnast Missy Pantone (Eliza Dushku) to replace her. Missy's brother Cliff (Jesse Bradford) and Torrance develop chemistry. It should be straight forward to win the national championship for the sixth year in a row with their standard routine. However Torrance discovers that Big Red had actually stolen the choreography from an inner city squad the Clovers led by the Isis (Gabrielle Union).

It has the cutesy wacky sensibility of Clueless and the structure of a traditional sports movie. The sport just happens to be cheerleading. It's fun and it's silly. It has its irreverent moments led by a great performance from Kirsten Dunst. At least, there are a few more shades to the traditional dumb mean cheerleader stereotype. The lingo is hilarious. If the viewer is willing to be not so high minded, this cheerleading movie could be a bit of fun.