Stick It

Screenwriter and music-video veteran Jessica Bendinger's feature-directing debut is a variation on the triumph-of-the-underdog formula she worked so effectively in BRING IT ON (2000), a frothy girl-power manifesto so briskly paced, sharply written and infectiously entertaining that its deficiencies seem as insignificant as a lightly chipped fingernail. Where BRING IT ON turned a gimlet eye on the high-energy hijinks of competitive cheerleading, STICK IT focuses on the cutthroat world of high-school gymnastics. Once upon a time, suburban punk Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym) was the best little girl in the world, a multiple-award-winning gymnast bursting with raw talent ...