Stick It Image

Mixed or average reviews - based on 25 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 36 Ratings

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  • Starring: , ,
  • Summary: The writer of the hit comedy "Bring It On" takes on the world of competitive gymnastics in Stick It. Haley Graham (Peregrym) is a rebellious 17-year-old who is forced to return to the regimented world of gymnastics after a run-in with the law. (Touchstone Pictures)
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 25
  2. Negative: 2 out of 25
  1. Reviewed by: Nathan Lee
    A spry teenage comedy that gets everything right, Stick It takes the usual batch of underdogs, dirt bags, mean girls and bimbos and sends them somersaulting through happy clichés and unexpected invention.
  2. 75
    Bendinger pulls out all the stops visually, using bold set design, frantic editing, extreme angles and computer image multiplying that turns what begins as a Busby Berkeley exercise in synchronized movement into a kaleidoscopic infinity of handsprings and back flips.
  3. Peregrym's performance as fiery, troubled teen Haley Graham is a triumph of charisma over technique.
  4. Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    Bridges gives the movie its only genuine pulse as a gym coach known for his hard and manipulative ways.
  5. Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    Bridges actually does a fine job in an uninteresting role. But this chick flick is all about the attitudinal teenagers.
  6. Like "Bring It On," Stick It is so much better than most of its insipid teen-movie peers yet like her earlier movie, Bendinger's new one is also not all it might be.
  7. Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    Rarely is a sports movie so inept that it can't even make its central figure likable.

See all 25 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 17
  2. Negative: 5 out of 17
  1. StephanieS.
    Jun 10, 2007
    I love this movie. It shows the attitude that most hurt teenagers portray. And as a member of the public that watches gymnastics I completely agree with what they did in it. I was funny and deep which most movies can't get across without seeming cheesy. I believe it was one of the greatest sports movies ever. Expand
  2. MariahL.
    Jun 2, 2006
    I really liked this movie because it was funny and interesting. I love how all the girls rebel against the judges and judging rules.
  3. MartinN.
    Apr 24, 2006
    Amazing! The most fun at the cineplex thie year.
  4. SarahP.
    Jul 29, 2006
    I really injoyed watching this movie and I would love to see it again.
  5. Feb 14, 2012
    A light hearted female orientated gymnastics film. Sounds odd? Thatâ
  6. MarkB.
    Jun 20, 2006
    The title of this adolescent-in-more-ways-than-one girls' gymnastics movie is, of course, a double meaning. In addition to its obvious use as a sophomoric insult, it's a gymnastics term meaning to complete a difficult routine by landing and staying on your feet as opposed to your knees, hands or butt. Sadly ironic, then, that Jessica Bendiger's movie about the subject spends so much time falling on its face! The plot (stop me if you've heard this several hundred times before) deals with a perpetual screw-up who gets another chance, learning from her new teammates and coach the value of Team Spirit. Well, the movie certainly smells like team spirit, and Bendiger knows her territory (note how parents here refer to a certain end-of-school-year event as THE prom, while the kids drop the article) but all of her characters are astonishingly cruel and unlikable, her writing unforgivably sloppy (she has a character speak fluent malapropism about half of the picture's length, then abruptly drops the gag) and she recycles that regrettable but audience-massaging teen-movie tactic that made John Hughes a very wealthy man in the 1980s: When In Doubt, Blame The Parents For Everything. Surprisingly, Bendiger wrote the definitive movie in this genre six years ago: the surprisingly terrific little cheerleader movie Bring It On, which among its many other excellences featured a near-brilliant opening-credits sequence that brought all the standard stereotypes about cheerleaders out into the open, allowing the rest of the movie the freedom to dispel them by showing just what hard work cheerleading really is. And it finished with a genuinely exciting, thrilling cheer competition, which you'd think Stick It would at least have the good sense to duplicate. But the precise moment you WANT this movie to be predictable, and allow us to enjoy some competitive gymnastic footage, Bendiger suddenly up and decides to go all polemical, and turn the film into an expose of unfair judging practices...which may indeed be justified, but the protests that ensue rob us of even the incidental climactic pleasures of the tritest of sports dramas. (Perhaps the movie's countercultural twist is what attracted Jeff Bridges, whose skill at script selection is normally impeccable, to this. I certainly can't think of any OTHER reason!) Other than noting how much the promising lead actress, Missy Peregrym, looks like Hilary Swank (and how much Gia Carides, playing her mother, resembles an older Courteney Cox), there really isn't much to enjoy here on any level: Bendiger in her directorial debut tries to compensate for the many deficiencies in her script by employing lots of speeded-up motion and other annoying MTV techniques (to say nothing of a headache-inducing soundtrack), but, as her movie's announcers are fond of saying during The Big Meet: "Consistency is more important than flash." At least Bendiger displays enough insight here to be her own best critic! Expand
  7. MollyM
    Oct 16, 2006
    The other night, my friends and I got this movie from the Redbox. We weren't expecting much, but hoped it would at least be entertaining. We were sadly wrong. I've seen a lot of crap out there, but this was one of the worst movies I have seen in years. It was painfully and pathetically bad. Stupid plot, bad writing, terrible acting, ridiculous cinematography, and poor directing. Everything was done all wrong, and felt awkward and off kilter. They tried to make it campy and funny and quirky, but it just didn't work. The main character is a jerk that you never learn to like, and is so obnoxious that you kind of hope the DVD player will break so that you don't have to deal with her loser personality anymore. The story is badly told, and really, we only finished it because we couldn't imagine that a movie could get any worse, but it just kept getting more and more ridiculous. No, it isn't really a silly teen movie about a juvenile delinquent/gymnastics star, it is really a "scathing attack" on the gymnastics judging system. I felt like I was watching a show written by a petty, small-minded, immature seventh grader who was trying to get revenge on a friend who had betrayed her by writing a mean story about the friend and then reading it out loud in class. This movie sucked, bad. I am almost traumatized I thought it was that horrible to sit through. And when I saw that the New York Times reviewer gave it a 90, I could not believe that we saw the same movie. Were you drunk or on drugs when you reviewed this movie? I dare you to watch it a few more times and then tell me if you give it the same score. I don't think I will ever take what that critic says seriously ever again. Take my advice, don't waste even one minute on this piece of crap that they call Stick It. Expand

See all 17 User Reviews