The Charge

Fight to cheer another day.

Opening Statement

Or don't, because this move hates you.

Facts of the Case

Monica, April and Courtney (Trishelle Cantanella, The Scorned) are the aforementioned Ninja Cheerleaders. They're best friends who cheer and strip and learn ninjitsu from strip club owner and karate master Hiroshi (George Takei) and punch bad guys in the face and assert the feminist independence by crushing men's testicles with their fists.

A tough, local crime-lord (Michael Pare) has declared war on the Ninja Cheerleaders by kidnapping Hiroshi and stealing the girls' stripping money, forcing our three heroines to embark on a cross-town ass-kicking spree.

The Evidence

That synopsis might sound halfway entertaining, but ignore my skillful synopsis writing: Ninja Cheerleaders is simply stunning in its ability to aggressively annoy me. There is literally nothing remotely entertaining here. The comedy is not funny, the action is stilted and lame, and if you're hoping for some cheap-o sleaze, you'll find more titillation from a mistyped Google search.

How insipid is this movie? Let us count the ways!

• Action
As I said, stilted and lame. The girls give it their all, but as ninjas trained in the lethal art of hand-to-hand combat, they're about as convincing as, well, me pretending to be trained in the lethal art of hand-to-hand combat. Even if Trishelle happened to have an extensive Muay Thai background, the flat fight choreography would have been a waste—if you're going for an R rating, why not go crazy and have the Ninja Cheerleaders decapitate some fools?!? The big swordfight at the end with George Takei is the best the film has to offer action-wide, but it's predominantly shot from above and in the dark to obscure Takei's obvious stunt double.

• Comedy
The film is classified as an action/comedy on the back of the disc, but it's neither. The action is gimped, but compared to the attempts at humor, the fight scenes look like they were put together by Yuen Woo Ping. There is not a single laugh to be found in this insipid script…unless you think repeated shots of a cheerleader squeezing a man's sack is high-larious. Oh, and there is a part where some girl scouts force some guy to buy 20 boxes of cookies. That may have been the comedy centerpiece. What does that tell you? Actually, I did laugh at one part—during a basketball game, the cheerleaders are doing their cheers in the middle of the court while the teams are playing. Did anyone associated with this film ever actually witness cheerleading before?

• Sleaze
Oh, yeah, I also laughed at the notion of these three strippers that end their act with nearly as many clothes on when they started. Yet this seems to get all the local men pretty riled up. For those of you desperate for nipple-sightings, there are some anonymous breasts in the corny transitions between scenes.

That's all I want to say about this waste of time. Everything you need to know about whether this is worth your attention can be summed up in this statement: Michael Pare gives the most entertaining performance of the film.

Video: a clean 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Audio: 5.1 surround. Extras: trailers and a making-of documentary where everyone seems pretty pleased with themselves for subjecting me to this tripe.

Closing Statement

Someone obviously thought that Ninja Cheerleaders would move enough units just because of its oh-so-quirky title and didn't bother making a coherent movie.

The Verdict

Guilty. Sentence: Death by pom-pom seppuku.

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