Sugar and Spice (PG-13, 2001)

Diane Weston (Marley Shelton) is the head cheerleader, relentlessly peppy and optimistic. She and the new quarterback, Jack Bartlett (James Marsden), fall in love. Their parents are thrilled when they say plan to get married, until they explain that it will have to wait until after the baby is born. Their parents kick them out, and Diane and Jack have to find jobs and a place to live. Diane decides that they will have to rob a bank to get the money they need for the baby, and the other girls agree to help. The girls rent movies with robbery scenes to get ideas and then go in with "Betty Doll" masks and what they think are non-working guns.

SUGAR AND SPICE is supposedly a cute story of a pregnant teenage cheerleader and her friends who rob a bank. Lisa (Marla Soloff) a bitter rival of the cheerleaders, narrates the movie. In the first few minutes, she calls a male cheerleader a "fag" and accuses the cheerleaders of being so close they must be "lesbos." The movie begins by helpfully assigning each member of the cheerleading squad one characteristic, to help viewers keep them straight. There is "the rebel," "the brain," "the mastermind," etc. The girls have nothing in common other than cheerleading, and yet are completely devoted to each other. As one of them says, "you're the only family I have." Parents are hopelessly out of touch or otherwise useless.

The movie wastes the talents of some able performers, and it is almost painful to see this lively and energetic cast struggle with the lazy grubbiness of the script. When the best the director can do to add energy to a scene is to play Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part II" (the successor to "I Feel Good" and "Bad to the Bone" as the most overused soundtrack song), you know they've run out of ideas and just don't care anymore.