Ninja Cheerleaders! Yes, I said Ninja…Cheerleaders!

 

Incredibly Awesome?

Ninjas? Super Crazy Awesome!

Cheerleaders? Yummy Tasty Yes Please!

Ninjas and Cheerleaders? Quite possibly just about the Best Thing Ever!

Okay, so then what about Ninja Cheerleaders? Surprisingly, not so great.

Okay, well then how about Ninja Cheerleader Strippers? HA!

Ha?

Ha I said! More on this later…

So…

I knew nothing of this movie going in. I was merely flipping through the onscreen guide, saw that title, and couldn’t hit the “record” button fast enough. Luckily(?) the movie hadn’t started yet.

What we should have had with Ninja Cheerleaders (not to be confused with Cheerleader Ninjas), actually, let me rephrase that…what I was hoping we would have had with Ninja Cheerleaders, was something on par with the campy tongue in cheek greatness of Rodriguez & Tarantino’s Grindhouse (Planet Terror & Death Proof).

Instead what we have here is a case where the whole is lesser than the sum of it’s parts.

Want to touch the heinie?

Ninja Cheerleaders stars a Real World slut (but which one? There are so many…) by the name of Trishellle Cannatella, who makes my ears bleed when she Yippee-Ki-Yay’s. You hear me? She Yippee. Ki. Yay’s. The blasphemer!

Trishelle plays Courtney. Courtney is supposed be a barely legal Co-Ed. The other two tarts that put the “s” in Cheerleaders (to make it plural, cause there are 3 of them, gosh), April and Monica, are introduced as 18-year-olds. So to account for the clearly-pushing-30 Trishelle in the role, they age Courtney up a bit, making her 19 (A producers job never ends I tells ya! You gotta ABT. Always be tlosing? No silly, you gotta always be thinking.), and by definition, sophisticated and worldly. Thus, her favorite band is the L.A. Philharmonic, in contrast to her fellow ninja Clanmate’s favorites – the Killers and the Strokes.

Speaking of April and Monica, they are played by Ginny Weirick and Maitland McConnell, respectively. April is the no-nonsense worrywart stick in the mud and Monica is the flirty, bubbly dreamer.

I must confess something here. I’ve got a little crush on Maitland, who seems to be the only one of the three leads that understands what movie she’s in and rolls with it. She’s also the only one here with any concept of timing and delivery. Oh, and did I mention, she’s cute as a button to boot, with a smile that’ll make you melt! See for yourselves:

And one more, just because:

Swiss cheese?

There’s the saying, “a plot hole so big you could drive a truck through it”. Ninja Cheerleaders should be so lucky. The holes it suffers from aren’t merely in the plot, but in the very fabric of logic.

The movie opens with the girls in full ninja garb infiltrating an Army Base to steal a ninja sword from the on-base museum. Yes, you read that right, the on-base museum. Again, to clarify, this wasn’t a military museum open to the public, this was a museum…on an Army Base, and presumably strictly for the soldiers. Not a storage warehouse where they’ve hidden away the Ark of the Covenant, but a look-but-don’t-touch museum…that displays ninja swords. Nice to see we’re off to such a strong start.

After they’ve stolen the sword and replaced it with an imposter, they proceed to seemingly take out the entire 1st Infantry Division. Umm, hello, they’re ninjas! They’re supposed to use stealth and cunning to achieve their objective, which was to get the sword! Beating up the Army serves no purpose but to call attention to themselves and let it be known that they were there. They actually sneak up behind the soldiers and initiate the attack! If they needed to do this to get to the sword in the first place, that’s one thing, but do it just to do it? What the fuck is that shit!?!! It’s things like this that make me wonder if writer/director David Presley had ever seen a single ninja movie prior to making Ninja Cheerleaders. For Shame!

After the sword theft, we cut to the girls in their sensei Hiroshi’s dojo. Hiroshi is played by, wait for it…George Takei. Why he’s slumming it here is beyond me. Maybe, like me, he saw that title and believed in his heart of hearts that this was destined for greatness, but instead needed a quadruple bypass upon seeing the final product (see, it came full circle, “quadruple bypass” linked us back to “heart of hearts” – who takes care of you like I do?).

Hiroshi congratulates them on completing their final task of stealing the sword and officially pronounces them ninjas, saying:

“I am proud of you. The sword of our Order has been returned. It has been a long road…and it has taken you many years. Returning the sword was your final test. The Order has accepted you.”

There are oh-so-many problems I have with that mini speech of his…

“It has taken you many years.” Really? Many years? Many, years? They are 18, 18, & 19. How many years did it take them exactly? No wait, let me guess, the three white girls were born into it! Did they start their ninja training in the womb?

And better yet, where is the rest of their Order? Shouldn’t they be surrounding the newest members as they are sworn in? And if there is this whole Order, how come none of them ever went after the sword? But more about the Order a little later on.

So getting the sword back is a big deal, huh? A long, arduous task. One of high risk, but even higher reward, culminating with an acceptance to an ancient and secret fighting clan. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a fucken kickass storyline to me. I guess maybe that’s why I’m never gonna get anywhere in life.

Instead of the indubitable awesomeness that could have been, we’re burdened with a half-thought, convoluted mess of a plot, chock full of contrived scenario after contrived scenario. The basic outline goes like this:

• Three Junior College Cheerleaders train with a sensei to become ninjas
• They’re also studying for finals with the hopes of transferring to an Ivy League school
• In order to be able to afford this new transfer school they make money on the side stripping
• Luckily, there’s a huge dance-off coming up, which if they win, will put their college fund over the top
• Once their college fund is over the top, they can stop stripping, because they’re honorable and only did it for the cash
• Their sensei is kidnapped and they must rescue him while outwitting a nosy cop
• The kidnappers also stole their college money
• The deadline for our cheerleader ninjas to rescue their sensei is the same day as their last final, which also happens to be the same day as the big strip competition
• Spoiler…
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• They ace their finals, rescue their sensei, get their money back, and win the competition! Hooray!!

Some of the guffaws in more detail:

Ninja sensei Hiroshi’s dojo should be restricted to members of the Order, as would only be logical. Instead we get as a first time walk-in, Milli, or is it Vanilli, whichever one is still alive, doing his best to channel William Zabka in The Karate Kid while sparring with April. I wonder how this ends?

All three girls are geniuses with perfect gpa’s? Granted, this is at Junior College, but somehow, they all get into Brown. I mean sure, they look smart:

I don’t know, I never went to Brown, but I guess their admission standards are pretty lax. I’ll stick with my State School degree, thank you very much!

Oh, and I guess in this economy, senseiing just ain’t paying the bills, because Hiroshi has to moonlight. Luckily, he was able to find the only other profession imaginable that actually equals the level of pride and nobility one holds as a ninja sensei. Hiroshi’s second job? Club owner of the “STRIP PALACE”.

Which brings us back to what I mentioned earlier about Ninja Cheerleader Strippers. Yep, our “proud” sensei has his star ninja pupil’s “stripping” in his club. See those quotation marks around “stripping”, that’s because they never strip! As April tells it – “I’m not a stripper, I’m a Go Go Dancer”. Except, you know, for the fact that you work at a place called the STRIP PALACE!!!

Another scenario has a handful of Navy Gilligan’s in full regalia attempt gang-rape on our heroines only to get their poopdecks handed to them.

And why does a ninja sensei need a big scary black man for a bouncer? Was this an affirmative action thing? Why not just get another member of the Order to do it? Or one of your students? Or all of your students. Call it a part of their training and you don’t even need to pay them!

Speaking of which, if there’s a whole Order of ninjas, how come only the three newest, and by extension, least experienced members of the Order go out to rescue him? And forget about newest for a minute, how come only three ninjas were dispatched to rescue an abducted sensei? Cause that makes perfect sense.

And while we’re on the subject, how was Hiroshi able to get kidnapped? Did he let it happen as another test for his three ladies, to see if they could actually save him? Or is this a case of “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach”?

Oh, and do you know who he was kidnapped by? The mafia, naturally. They wouldn’t be doing their due diligence if they hadn’t stuffed this movie with every recognizable caricature they could think of. Including the cop that keeps being outsmarted by three teenagers.

Where did it all go so wrong?

See all of the above, plus…

The production value? I seen better quality on YouTube. Was the cinematographer color blind? Or possibly even blind blind? And my god, the transitions!! Random topless broads caressing a pole, ninjas doing their most ninja-y (ninjaly(?), ninjy(?), ninjary (?)) poses, pom-pom waving cheerleaders or any combination thereof, serve as buffers between scenes. You remember the Simpsons episode where Homer makes a dating video for Ned and every 4 seconds there’s a star wipe? Well, it’s exactly like that, except with ninjas, tits, and pom-poms, but I assure you, it is no less pedestrian.

Also, I’ve known several strippers in my day, er, I mean, I have a friend who’s known several strippers in his day, and not a single one has ever danced under her real name. So when they introduce our titular characters onstage, it’s not as Charity, Aurora, and Magnificent, but as Courtney, April, and Monica. So not only has Presley never seen American Ninja, but he’s also never been to the Titty Twister (2nd Tarantino/Rodriguez shoutout tonight, what am I blowing them?!?!!)? Seriously, this guy has no business coming anywhere near a genre movie, let alone writing and directing one.

Then there was ear bleed moment #2, courtesy of April – “It’s a ninja thing.”

Oh and the pervy cheerleading coach who could have only been more stereotypical if they had made him a her, and a lesbian, and butch.

Oh, and oh! The autistic evil lady ninja working for the mob…always referring to herself in the third person – Kinji! Think an Asian female version of South Park’s Timmy, subtract the wheelchair and you’re not far off.

At this point, I’ve written over 1850 words about Ninja Cheerleaders, when only four were needed – This Movie’s Fucken Lame. But I feel I would be doing all of you a disservice if I didn’t cover one last important aspect. Perhaps even the most important aspect. Titties! I said tit-tays!

An intrinsic part of any movie like Ninja Cheerleaders are bare naked flopping free breasts, nipples and all. I really am dumbfounded that in a movie called Ninja Cheerleaders, where our three protagonists are not only cheerleaders, but strippers as well, we never so much as get side boob from them. This disgusts me. Things like this set genre movies back nine decades. Why not just have them dressed like this the whole time:

As a rule of thumb, tit’s always, always, always, make a movie better. For instance, I love The Goonies, it’s without a doubt one of my absolute favorite movies, but you know what, it would have been exponentially better had Kerri exposed her Greens. So when a movie is essentially built to showcase tits, this rule is especially true.

We had a scene where these three are studying…in bed! In bed? In bed I said! And yet there is nary a tickle nor pillow fight. No truth or dare. No experimentation of any kind. But why the fuck not? I’m sure that slut Trishelle would have gladly dropped her top, as she’s done it before (things haven’t started sagging already, have they?). So are you telling me the other two refused? They were cast in a movie called Ninja Cheerleaders for Pete’s sake! What were they expecting, Shakespeare? But a better question is why cast leads in Ninja Cheerleaders that refuse to disrobe? Please don’t tell me it’s because they were the best ones at the audition…I shudder to think what the rest of the hopefuls were like if these were the cream of the crop.

Not that having the three cheerleaders lezzin’ out would have saved this movie, but that’s all the more reason to have put it in – as penance for forcing us to sit through this schlock.

To be fair, there was a 4-6 second scene with two random topless broads, but this was far too little, too late.

Anyway…

- Lenny