The first poster that I saw advertising “Sugar and Spice,” released by New Line Cinemas, showed a picture of a blonde “Betty doll” head asking “Why would the most popular girl in school wear a mask?”
It was revolting. It appeared to promise a pungent, ooey-gooey, teen flick calculated perfectly to touch the hearts of all 11-year-old girls in America.
Fortunately, “Sugar and Spice” is actually a semi-dark comedy about a group of cheerleaders who decide to rob a bank — hence the masks. The cheerleaders live happy suburban lives of popularity, but when one of them gets pregnant and needs money for her future family, cook up the robbery scheme.
The movie still falls into the category of mindless teen-age entertainment. It is certainly no masterpiece, but it is nonetheless amusing … for the most part.
The five cheerleaders are introduced at the start of the film with nicknames, “the virgin,” “the rebel,” “the brain” and so on. These stereotypes are established quickly and firmly and do not budge throughout the entire movie. Besides playing upon every imaginable “stupid cheerleader” clichÇ, the movie also keeps the supporting cast in tight roles of caricature. For example, the football players are rowdy and dense, and the rest of the pimply kids idolize them.
But the beauty — if you want to call it that — of this movie is that it spends its time making fun of itself, cashing in as much as it can on this supremely unrealistic world. Though inane, “Sugar and Spice” is humorous besides the occasional areas where the jokes are just too stupid to be funny.
“Sugar and Spice” is much more like “Road Trip” than “She’s All That.” They even managed to work fart jokes into this cheerleader flick, if that sort of thing pleases you.
Though they can be obnoxious, some of the better jokes in “Sugar and Spice” include the fact that one of the girls, “the stalker,” is obsessed with Conan O’Brien. Also, during the robbery five of the girls enter the bank as pregnant “Betty dolls,” one as Richard Nixon — and do a cheerleading lift in order to black out a security camera with spray paint.
On the other hand, the most tiring moments come from the overkill of stereotypes. For instance, the church-girl cheerleader is made into so much a goody-goody that she fails to be funny at all. The end of the movie was also too rushed and fizzled out a bit.
The cast includes Marley Shelton, Mena Suvari, Marla Sokoloff, Melissa George and James Marsden, who were all fairly comical, though this film is certainly not a test of acting skills or dimensionality of character.
The biggest disappointment of “Sugar and Spice” was that it didn’t make the humor darker, which might have helped wash out some of the unintentional frivolity. And, though this movie didn’t completely bite, I also didn’t pay to see it. I don’t know if I would agree to shell out $8 for this one unless I was in a really good mood.
Overall though, “Sugar and Spice” makes enough fun of itself that it offers a good time. Even the most spirited cheerleader will probably find it amusing rather than insulting.
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