Bring It On: Fight to the Finish (2009)

Bring It On: Fight to the Finish is the fifth and so far final installment of the Bring It On franchise. I'll not give away much by telling I still think the third installment is by far the best one. Behind that I hold the original ahead of this and then the fourth and finally the worst is by far the awful second.

This time our story is quite similar, but reversed, to the successful third. We follow a Latino head-cheerleader, 'Lina', from East L.A., moving to the wealthy parts of Malibu as her waitress mother marries a rich white man there. Our heroine, played by Christina Milian, gets a step-sister as well as part of the deal. Refreshingly enough the rich and white stepsister isn't portrayed as the opponent in this movie, but rather the opposite. Her part as 'Skylar' is played by Holland Roden, and Holland is a name I encourage you to learn. If this is in any way telling of her talent I think we'll be seeing a lot more from her in the years to come. Here she looks like a young Isla Fisher, with both pieces of attitude, charm and the ability to act on several layers. Her character lost her mother many years ago, have always wanted a sister and welcomes 'Lina' with open arms. 'Skylar' is also part of the less successful cheer-leading squad at the school, and obvious 'Lina' is recruited to make them good enough to beat the rival Jaguars.

In the usual manner of the entire franchise, this will stay within its set to-do-list. We get our cheer-duel, a romance story, some character-building and morale and so on and so forth. there's also as usual some more annoying choices made by writers and director, but we are getting way used to that by now in this series. Overall its very average for what we've come to expect from these movies, and so is the acting, the choice of lead, the story, the cheering and so on and so forth. In short most is worse than in the original and especially the third installment, while most is better than second and fourth. I take with me the inspiring performances and future of Holland Roden, the refreshing good stepsister and for the rest I'm happily unaware if there's a sixth installment in the cards.