Sugar & Spice

This is a little ditty ’bout Jack and Diane. Two American kids…who get married in high school and don’t do the best they can. Diane (Marley Shelton from Nixon and Never Been Kissed) is the head cheerleader at Lincoln High (whose mascot is the Fighting Lincoln). Her boyfriend Jack (James Marsden from X-Men), who she met by kicking him in the face, is the star football player. Of course, when they meet sparks fly. Apparently so does the semen because she gets pregnant soon before prom.

They get kicked out of their respective houses and have to make it alone. Jack gets a job at the local video store because the geeky guys who work there want to hang out with him after school. Diane gets a job at the bank branch at the grocery store…which gives her the greatest idea that any cheerleader has had since the invention of the mini-skirt.

The problem is that she and all of her friends are dumber than bricks. Even Lucy “The Genius” Whitman(Sara Marsh) who is trying to get into Harvard and has a good chance is pretty damn stupid.

The rest of her crew are Kansas “The Rebel” Hill (Mena Suvari), Hannah “The Virgin” Wold (Rachel Blanchard from Road Trip and The Rage: Carrie 2), and Cleo “The Stalker” Miller (from The Limey and Dark City). Along the way they add Fern “The Terminator” Rogers (Alexandra Holden from Drop Dead Gorgeous and Dancer, TX). That pretty much sums up their characters. To help you tell them apart I’ll tell you a little bit about them. Kansas is the one with the mom in prison for killing her father a few seconds after she was born. He was in the next room with a nurse. Hannah is the one with a strong Christian back ground who can’t watch anything but G-rated movies. She likes horses. She REALLY likes horses. Cleo is the one who is obsessively in love with (get this) Conan O’Brien. She fantasizes about Conan’s head on Keanu Reeves’ body. Lucy is the obsessive compulsive…but it only shows up when it’s convenient. Fern is a white trash girl with the local arms dealer for a dad. He’s rather unfunny.

Oh, back to the Idea. Diane thinks it would be a great idea to rob her bank. They know that they can do it because they can rent a bunch of bank robber movies and learn from their mistakes. (None of which, by the way, made any appearance during the robbery proper.)

Besides their utter stupidity (the only person dumber than they are is Jack), they have another turn of bad luck. Lisa (Marla Sokoloff from Whatever It Takes and Dude, Where’s My Car?) is there…and she’s out to get Diane for stealing the position of head cheerleader from her.

I am so ashamed of myself for actually kind of liking this movie. I’m sure it will be totally bashed by the critics. Really, it’s almost as stupid as its main characters. But there are little flashes of near brilliance that make up for the fact that one of the first places that Jack tries to get a job at is a fast food joint called Lucky Pluckers. (This may have been funnier if there weren’t a place here in Austin called Pluckers. They use a lot of the same jokes. Somehow it’s kind of funny there.)

It’s a satire on the cheerleader stereotype and (including the prerequisite gay mascot dude), I guess, the bank robber movie. In that capacity it almost works. Sort of. Maybe if only the cheerleaders had been stupid. But even Lisa was a complete moron. This should have been called Reservoir Dumbasses. (There’s a pretty funny parody of that movie in here, too…of course. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen five Betty dolls and Richard Nixon walk up to a grocery store in slo-mo.)

So, if you can turn your brain totally off you’ll probably enjoy this flick. It’s better than Jawbreaker (by miles) but not nearly as good as Heathers. Kind of along the lines of Drop Dead Gorgeous. Not too much of a waste of money for a slow Friday night. Go with a bunch of friends so that you can laugh at the girls you went to high school with. Although I seriously didn’t know anyone this braindead. But it’s pretty funny anyway.

And, besides, all of these girls are sexy as hell. I especially liked Cleo (with the Jennifer Connally eyebrows), Hannah (who, appropriately enough, looks like she could be related to Alicia Silverstone–she did play Cher in the Clueless tv show, after all) and Lucy (who, for some reason, reminded me of Patty Duke).

And what the hell is up with all of the cheerleader flicks these days? There’s But I’m A Cheerleader (really bad) and Bring It On (didn’t bother even though Kirsten Dunst is in it). And wasn’t there another one? Don’t you think America should be over its cheerleader fetish.

What am I talking about? I’m out of college and I still have a cheerleader fetish.

Um. Nevermind.