Jesse Bradford

Going in to this movie, I knew full well it was, well, a movie about cheerleading, so I wasn't expecting another American Beauty (which, now that I think of it, was partly about cheerleading, but anyway...). Suffice it to say that my expectations were low. And sure enough, Bring It On is an utterly vapid film with horrendous character development, hackneyed dialogue, and a questionable theme. No surprise there. Essentially it is Fame in short skirts.

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"Swimfan" is the kind of thriller that requires, for the plot to move forward, a complete absence of common sense on the part of the hero -- in this case a high school swim team star (Jesse Bradford) with a sultry, psycho, jailbait stalker (Erika Christensen).

No matter what crazy thing the deranged girl does to him -- leave her panties in his car, email him 81 times in a day, spike his urine sample with steroids, frame him for murder -- Bradford never tells a single person what's really going on because if anyone was watching his back, there would be no movie.

Which isn't to say "Swimfan" doesn't have its guilty pleasures. OK, one guilty pleasure. Christensen -- Michael Douglas's smack-addicted daughter in "Traffic," a beautiful girl with the heart-shaped face and sly, portentous eyes -- is such a fun, wicked, spiteful villainess that she keeps the flick afloat all by herself.

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"Bring It On" is better than any movie about cheerleading really ought to be.

Taking cues from "Clueless" -- the best teen bubble gum flick of Generation Y -- it's a self-mocking popularity satire that takes frequent pot shots at "sweater monkeys" and their endlessly percolating pep, while also allowing its bright cast of pretty young things to color outside the lines of their stock characters.

The talented Kirsten Dunst embraces her inner ditz as Torrence Shipman, the new cheer captain of the Rancho Carne High School Toros, a boys-and-girls pep squad with a repertoire of flashy choreographed routines and a major reputation to maintain. For five years running they've won the ruthlessly competitive national cheerleading championships. (You know you've watched them on ESPN2, admit it.)

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