I've said it before, but one of the biggest keys to success is in something as simple as your name.
If tomorrow you wake up, have a kid, and name that kid Darth Vader, I personally guarantee that baby will grow up to rule at least a county auditor's seat.
But every rule's got exceptions. On title alone, 2002's Cheerleader Ninjas should have rocked so hard I'd watch it on repeat until I developed a symbiotic relationship with my couch. Instead, it de-rocked me so thoroughly I had to give Big Awful Friday a ring and plead for it to cover a couple weeks early this month.
Outraged at the prevalence of Internet porn, local Catholic school teachers hatch a plot to replace all the images on the 'net with pictures of the Pope. To accomplish this crime, they'll need to harness the power of teenage male nerds — the same nerds the rival high school cheer squad needs to get them in touch with the ninja master who'll train them to defend themselves against a Catholic schoolgirl hit-squad.
Based on that description alone, 900 of you have already rushed out to rent it, but to the dismay of all, the reality is infinitely disappointing. All of that may sound great, but what it leaves out is the excruciating barrage of "jokes" based on the keen insight that teen geeks enjoy touching themselves, smelling bad, and then putting their hands down their pants some more.
Amazingly, that grating "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" take on humor is only the beginning of the ways Cheerleader Ninjas finds to fail. I spend more on toothpaste each year than it spent on its budget, and I don't even have teeth. Being poor isn't a crime — yet — but just about everything else about this movie is.
Gathering all the senseless nudity and duh-duh stupidity of an '80s teen sex romp with none of the bustling plot or the being funny, it's a lot like if Revenge of the Nerds were made by people who personally hate you. (Yet 100% of its jokes about bears are genuinely hilarious. Bears: even funnier than Canadians.)
Worst of all, Cheerleader Ninjas frequently interrupts itself to comment on how silly it all is, as if that absolves it of being unimaginative, humorlessly crass, and completely worthless. Wrong. That just means its creators understand why they cry themselves to sleep each night.