realityobserver
I have 2 daughters and after seeing this horrible film I was so glad that neither one turned out like anyone in this train wreck movie... Haley (the 'star') is a rebel who refuses to take anyone seriously or has any respect for authority or anyone for that matter... She starts the movie with doing BMX stunts and causing $14,000 worth of damage to a property with her friends, 'the good natured, harmless losers who are in every teen movie'..... She shows no remorse or even cares about the damage done and then proceeds to be a complete ass and snot nosed kid with the court, her mom, her dad, her new coach, her fellow athletes and anyone else in the movie.... I felt absolutely zero compassion, understanding or any kind of 'good' emotion towards this girl. If I was her parent I would try at least to have a talk about morals and school and leading a good life and so on but her parents (like everyone in this movie) are so unlikable and uncaring you sense that will never happen. So I guess I would let the court send her to 'juvie' and wish her the best of luck. Three minutes into the film I disliked this girl entirely...We find out later dear ole dad spent 4 times the amount of tuition to get her into this gym school and it makes you wonder why... until you find out she is Olympic class athlete material who just decided to quit 2 years ago for a reason no one seems to explain. Skip ahead through all the training and 'I'm better than you' inter-girl catfights and we are now at the official competition, all the girls refuse to do any gymnastics (after years of preparation) so that one girl who does do the routines can get the gold medal... uh-huh... And these girls who refuse will ever get a chance to compete again after that display of sportsmanship ???? And lastly, just an annoying issue really... the sub sub plot involves the 2 lame friends who let Haly take all the blame for the damage at the beginning, they keep showing up at her practice academy which is 400 miles away, and seem to stay for the rest of the movie. One keeps hitting on a girl to go to prom, so I assume he is in High School and then again, why isn't he at school ???? And they drive there in a vehicle which is probably unlikely as they are losers without jobs and where are the parents of the losers while they are away for a month or whatever... the movie does not give you a hint of any of this and it doesn't seem to matter to anyone else, so I quit caring also....Last point.... The scene at the shopping mall is just so unbelievable that I laughed out loud at the stupidity of it all... The first thing I thought of was where is mall security and why are these idiot kids acting like this, while in the rest of the movie they act somewhat restrained ????horrible horrible stupid amateurish film that needs to be ignored at all costs, unless you are a 9 year old girl who likes gymnastics....
johnnyboyz
What do I know about gymnastics? What prior link or connection have I had to gymnastics? What did I learn about gymnastics from 2006 film Stick It? The collective answer to all three is "absolutley nothing at all". But what I can share in reference to gymnastics, and in particular young American girls going through a process of gymnastic trials and tribulations, is the said sport going on during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The Olympics being what they are, that odd occasion every four years in the middle of the summer in which you end up following sports you've often never heard of let alone ever sat down to competently watch, saw me stumble across the young American girl's team doing all sorts of gymnastic activity and doing them really rather well. The situation saw really rather young, and one would assume completely naive to what life can through at you; bleary eyed gymnasts in a group of about six or seven dwarfed by this huge China-set gymnastics auditorium full of roaring crowds, proceeding to follow through with a number of quite frightening procedures ranging from bars to vaults to all sorts. Their feats matched those of the host nation's entrants, and a battle for the gold medal was certainly unfolding; the experience of these youngsters travelling to Beijing, in China, with all the Communist or political turmoil that in itself carries, must have been an experience in itself. This, as the pressure that is on them anyway must have all combined in a flurry of emotions and personal feelings.So a film about American gymnastics competing, having to hone their ability and supposedly going through this coming-of-age-come-realisation of life transition might be more interesting if it were about those journeying half way across the world to compete such as in the scenario above. We don't get this with Stick It; instead, we get a tired and eerily fetishistic formula piece in which Missy Peregrym's Haley Graham is the star of a tale about a washed-out rebellious girl whose fondness for gymnastics threatens to re-emerge after she's busted for damage of private property. We know Haley is a bit of a rebel, as she wears a Ramones T-shirt, has a Sex Pistols poster sprawled over her bedroom wall and uses a few four letter words now and again. Since, she's rejected a seemingly warm and rewarding life of gymnastics for hanging out with shady types and engaging in illegal BMX activity instead, itself an item of physical performance; balance and show.In being caught after breaking some property during a BMX meeting, she must face going back to gymnastics and at the forefront of this is Jeff Bridges' tutor named Burt Vickerman. The film is the first from Jessica Bendinger, whose film is mostly just montages and loving compositions of various female gymnasts in tight leotards flexing, being massaged or getting out of ice baths in slow motion whilst dripping wet. When we aren't getting shots of how curvy Maddy Curley looks dressed as such, they're close ups of feet; all the while filtered through this bright, misguided palette of shades of red's, green's, blue's, yellow's and whites. At their first proper meeting with one another in a diner, Vickerman identifies Haley as a "rebel without a clause"; she sees him, in what is an odd self-reflective moment, as nothing more than a cliché and they sit opposite each another in what is an attempt at establishing degrees of conflict. The trouble is their banter plus general theme of there being a rivalry between 'student whom doesn't want to be there' and 'gruff tutor living off a past tragedy' is a little turgid. As is the on-off friendship with Joanne (Lengies), whom we despise not because she is the rival of our heroine but because it's as if she's stumbled into a gymnastics class on the way home from finishing last at a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen-come-Hanna Montanna soundalike contest, and felt thoroughly downbeat in the process.As a team of Haley, Joanne and a few others of whom aren't important are forced into bonding, the team flit around the country competing in competitions which gives an array of companies the chance for some shocking product placement. The film instills some rather negative ideas into its intended young, female audience when Haley is bitterly disappointed to be initially left out of a squad and the idea that failure exists and is something we must all identify exists becomes apparent; this, before she burrows her way back in with a snazzy and flashy montage of an in-house squad playoff she instigates and the point is undermined. It's ridiculous, as is the film's further ramming down of our throat that Haley is an outcast in that when she arrives at the competition, something is spilt on her top and she must change into a different coloured tunic further still emphasising a difference between her and the team: she's an outcast, we get it. Move on.At the event is an odd staging of deliberate fouling to 'get one up' on the judges; essentially writer/director Bendinger giving the finger, through the girls in the film/the girls the film's made for, to any negative critical reception the film may garner. One additionally wonders why the paying audience reacted so lovingly to the persistent fouling, one wonders furthermore why crowds would come to a gymnastics event with cards ready to wave around on which '0.0' is displayed. A meek sub-plot linked to Joanne about whether she chooses young love and a trip to a prom over the girls and their championship match is a flimsy and dull inclusion; while the film as a whole is a limp and plodding affair, highly sexualised and tamely unfolded, the likes of which was not made for me and ought not really be seen by those it was intended for.
Rhys Cooper
I was really impressed.There are so many things that are so agreeable if you have ever tried to do any of it.It's very well done and interesting. The cinematography, color, quality and sets are awesome.This movie is great. I would very much like to see it again.It might indeed be a movie worth only watching on DVD, however.The style is very much like Step Up 2, but is a little more down to earth.I really enjoyed watching it on TV.
