NINJA CHEERLEADERS (2008)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Despite the title, there's not a lot to distinguish NINJA CHEERLEADERS from a lot of light-hearted adventure flicks. The best comedies try to keep up a constant barrage of jokes and pratfalls, but writer-director David Presley seems to think it's side-splitting just to have three hot girls running around beating up guys and wielding katanas. Oh, and they get dressed up in ninja outfits at times, which is the only metaphenomenal content here.

The "cheerleader" part is misleading. The three girls-- April, Courtney and Monica-- are indeed freshmen who perform a few cheerleading routines at a community college (do those institutions even have football teams?) But they spend more time earning college money dancing at a go-go club run by an old fellow who's both their boss and their sensei Hiroshi (George Takei). Given the fact that their cheerleading has nearly nothing to do with the story, why not NINJA GO-GO DANCERS? 

The girls don't have any real challenges for their great fighting-skills beyond punching and kicking mooks who get fresh with them. (One of them is seeking to get accepted by a good college, which subplot will rate a big Who Cares from everyone who would watch a film with the title NINJA CHEERLEADERS.) Then a crime-boss (Michael Pare) gets out of prison and he wants to reclaim the go-go club. He kidnaps Hiroshi, so the girls seek to rescue their mentor, when they can find time away from championing Girl Scouts against rude customers. The ninja-girls clobber a lot of Mafioso types, very rarely getting hurt in the fights, so the crime-boss enlists one female Asian fighter (Natasha Chang) to take on all three ninja-girls. The henchwoman does very little until the climax.

There's nothing noteworthy about the fight-scenes, but at least Presley provides a fair number of them, so that puts him ahead of the putz behind SOUL OF THE AVENGER. There's a little nudity, naturally not provided by the three main actresses, zero characterization, and a couple of moments where the script just throws continuity-logic out the window. For George Takei and ninja completists only.