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The Movie: Another franchise mined for potential direct-to-video dollars, "Bring It On: All Or Nothing" (or, better yet, "Bring It On: Hasn't It Been Brought Already?") is the third in the "Bring It On" franchise, coming after the plain, low-key "Bring It On Again". "All Or Nothing", helmed by Steve Rash ("Can't Buy Me Love", the not-too-bad direct-to-video "American Pie 4"), stars Hayden Panettiere ("Raising Helen") as Britney, captain of the cheerleading squad. The movie doesn't exactly start off in promising fashion when, in a dream sequence set at prom, Britney wakes up in the middle of class after ending her dream by farting in front of the whole school. Spoiled, shallow Britney has a meltdown shortly afterwards, as her father informs her that they're moving and she has to transfer to the school on the "other side of town" - Crenshaw High - where she finds herself going through the new experience of having to go through metal detectors on her way to class. Although the head cheerleader, Camille (Solange Knowles Smith) at the new school is mean to her, eventually she gets the chance to impress her new classmates at the auditions. Do we see a competition between Britney's new and old schools in her future? Like, for sure. In this case, they'll both be going up against one another in a competition while teen singer Rhianna looks on. The set-up out of the way, the picture then heads through the unusual scenes of Britney going up against the captain while both Britney's new and old squads go through training (there's even some krumping - although Panettiere trying to do it is sort of like if Kelly Clarkson started doing it in the middle of one of her concerts) while snipping at one another. With not a whole lot going on during the middle of the film, it starts to run out of steam. Panettiere and her co-stars manage a decent amount of energy and sass, but it's in service of such thin material that, even with a running time of about 90 minutes, the picture feels noticably padded. The picture is an improvement over the second installment (while it still has the look of a DTV production, this third installment does at least sport mildly better production values than the second film), but not by a great deal. Still, like it or not, don't be surprised to see another "Bring It On" sequel down the road. The DVD VIDEO: "Bring It On: All Or Nothing" is presented by Universal in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Picture quality is respectable, as the picture remained fairly sharp and well-defined throughout, with only a couple of slightly soft looking moments in a few of the interior scenes. No edge enhancement was seen, but the picture does show a couple of slight moments of artifacting. No print flaws were seen. Colors remained natural and vibrant, although could look a little smeary at times. SOUND: The film's Dolby Digital 5.1 brings the bass for the songs on the soundtrack, but otherwise remains a fairly straightforward, dialogue-driven experience. EXTRAS: A lengthy gag reel (11 minutes) starts things off and includes a classy moment where Pantierre provides a brief threat as an "intro" to a couple of her bloopers that required the use of a black box over part of the image. Otherwise, there are some moderately funny goofs here and a few cheerleading stumbles that looked rather painful. Also included are a look behind-the-scenes ("Behind the Cheers") and three featurettes on the dance moves seen in the picture. Final Thoughts: "Bring It On: All or Nothing" has a few moments in the first half and some decent performances, but the middle of the picture is pretty uneventful and predictable. The DVD offers fine audio/video quality and a few minor supplements. 
Film Grade The Film C DVD Grades Video 88/B Audio: 86/B Extras: 72/C |