Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Franz Dowling Unrealistic, stupid, boring, poorly written, annoying characters, terrible plot... I could go on forever. This movie was absolute trash from beginning to end. Don't waste your life watching this junk, even 'Bring it on' was better. On no planet would national gymnastics championships go like it does in 'Stick It'. The first half of the movie was bearable, even though I hated every single character (especially the main arrogant bitch) , but the second half was trash. An entire half hour or so is spent on one tournament where nothing happens except a bunch of talented gymnasts purposefully walking off instead of performing any tricks, and the audience cheers every bloody time?? What the actual f** is happening here? In conclusion, the movie was so bad that I had to get onto IMDb and write my first ever movie review. Thank You

fatherchristmas89 I enjoyed this film, and thought it was quite good until it got silly. It was quite enjoyable nevertheless, but not to be taken seriously.It is about a girl who is in court for trespassing and breaking a window, and as punishment is sent back to gymnastics training. I took it that Haley was very naturally talented and a bit of a prodigy. It didn't bother me that she hadn't trained for a few years, that can be looked past. I loved the narration when she was on the beam - 'pointless arms and stick your butt out'.It showed Haley training in the gym and becoming more serious, until the film started to get silly. Lines such as 'let us be in control of the scores' and 'the judges are just jealous'. No they are not! they are there to judge you, it's their job. You are there by your own free will and you judges are not making you do this (well in most circumstances). Plus comparing gymnastics to SEAL training isn't going to win any new fans, just anger people. They are two different kettles of fish.Secondly, no one would ever have a mass scratch unless there was a big political reason. There is too much at stake and you can't be certain that the other gymnasts wouldn't break the pact and perform and then win. Of course you have to get marked down for something (I agree the uniform isn't the best one) otherwise we would have a string of perfect 10s again. Plus the break dancing on the beam? why? why waste your life's training? Why not compete the best you can and then question the unfair marks. That is what happens in reality and marks get changed.If the film had focused on Haley's training and change of character it would have been more interesting instead of the cliché, unrealistic, silly ending.

SnoopyStyle Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym) is a caught vandalizing a home and sentenced to VGA in Houston, Texas. It's an elite gymnastic academy run by strict Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges). She's a rebellious teen who walked out of her junior Olympic team years earlier. Nobody likes her especially top girl Joanne Charis (Vanessa Lengies). Haley wants to do big tricks but she lacks control.It tries to be too cute and too stylized at the start. It comes off as being cheesy but in a bad way. The story is a lot of girl drama. Missy Peregrym is good as the tomboy rebel. Jeff Bridges does a nice but unimpressive job. It's trying to be Mean Girls with gymnastics in a traditional sports movie. It's not aiming for a very high score and it almost sticks the landing.

James Hitchcock "Stick It" is a rare example of a film about gymnastics, a sport which the cinema generally tends to ignore. To "stick it" in gymnastics terminology means to execute a landing perfectly, but in the context of the film the expression is often given a cruder colloquial meaning as in "You can stick it up....." That crude colloquialism might give some idea of the general tone of this teen comedy.Haley Graham is a rebellious teenager from a broken home in a small Texas town. (At least, we are told in the script that Haley is a teenager, although Missy Peregrym was actually 24 at the time). After being convicted of hooliganism, she is given a choice by a judge of either going to jail or going to train at an elite gymnastics academy. As Haley is a talented gymnast – indeed, is a former member of the US national team- this latter might not seem such a harsh punishment, but we learn that she quit the sport due to disillusionment with it and would almost consider jail the easier option. To make matters worse she walked out of competition in the middle of the World Championships, costing the American team the gold medal and making herself the most hated woman in gymnastics. I had never heard of Missy Peregrym before seeing this film; indeed, I had not previously heard of any of the actors in it apart from Jeff Bridges who plays Vickerman. Indeed, I understand that this has been Peregrym's only feature film to date, although she has appeared in a number of TV shows. She is, however, one of the main reasons for the success of this film. Her Haley Graham is a great comic character- smart, sassy, witty, no respecter of persons and yet strangely likable. The film was written and directed by Jessica Bendinger, the writer of "Bring It On" which is set in the world of competitive cheerleading. It was not a great success with the critics, the general consensus being that it was not in the same class as "Bring It On". Yet I actually thought that "Stick It" was the better of the two movies. Part of the reason doubtless has something to do with my attitude to the two featured sports; I am a longtime gymnastics fan whereas until I saw "Bring It On" I didn't even realise that there was such a sport as "competitive cheerleading". Another part of the reason, however, is the way in which "Stick It" confounds our expectations. After Haley arrives at the gymnastics academy, her bolshie attitude towards her coach, Burt Vickerman, and her fellow gymnasts, whom she despises as conformists, makes her even more enemies than she has already. At this stage we all know- or think we do- how the film will end. Under the guidance of a tough-but-fair coach Haley will rediscover her love for gymnastics, will undergo a complete change of heart, will be reconciled with her team-mates and her parents and in a wonderful sentimental feelgood ending will be crowned not only Olympic Champion but also Miss Popularity of the gymnastics world. Or something like that. Or nothing like that. Ms Bendinger obviously realised something which some other film-makers fail to realise, namely that modern teenagers do not really care for wonderful sentimental feelgood endings (any more than my generation cared for them when we were teenagers). Although Vickerman persuades Haley, rather against her will, to begin training seriously once again, her motive is not a rediscovered love for the sport but a realisation that winning prize money from competing is her best chance of paying off court-imposed fines for the property damage she has caused. She qualifies for the National Championships, but her rebellious spirit is still very much alive and she uses the event to organise a protest against over-rigid, subjective and biased judging- one of the many reasons she abandoned the sport in the first place. As she says "It doesn't matter how well you do. It's how well you follow their rules"- a sentiment which will win the approval of many young people. To satirise gymnastics on the grounds that its judging system is simultaneously both excessively rigid and excessively subjective is a bit unfair; the reason that the Code of Points has to be so strict is that if it were not the sport would be even more open to subjective and biased judging than it is. The ending is also a bit unrealistic; I doubt if in reality Haley would have found many of her fellow-gymnasts ready to join her in her protest. (They have sacrificed too much to throw it all away for the sake of a gesture). Those who did participate in such a protest would doubtless be banned from the sport for life, not rewarded with offers of university athletic scholarships. Yet satirical comedies like this one have a licence to disregard the laws of probability in a way that more serious dramas do not. Exaggeration for comic effect is often the best way of making a point, even if it goes beyond the bounds of the strictly plausible. It is not, I suspect, a film which will have been welcomed by the American gymnastics authorities, even though some of their members, notably Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin and Mohini Bhardwaj, appear in cameo roles. It takes a markedly irreverent view of the sport, holding some of its less attractive aspects- pushy parents, a high injury rate, overbearing coaches, inconsistent judging- up to critical scrutiny. It always does so, however, through the use of wit and humour rather than through preaching or moralising. The music on the soundtrack was not really to my taste, but overall this is a very amusing look at the world of sport with a great performance at its centre. 7/10