‘The Cheetah Girls’ return with energy, style and talent
All too often, sequels are pale imitations of original movies. By the time a franchise hobbles to its third installment, it often feels like outtakes from the first two films.
Disney Channel’s “The Cheetah Girls: One World,” debuting at 8 p. m. Friday and airing again at 8 p. m. Saturday, is a pleasant exception. The movie has the Cheetah Girls hallmarks: high energy, singing, dancing and a girl power message. It’s also more entertaining than the first two, the singing and dancing have improved, and it’s stunning.
Shot in India, the costumes alone could carry this film. Usually, what we see about India is the grinding poverty, which isn’t even hinted at here. Instead, this is a celebration of Bollywood, elephants, Indian music, dance and fashion.
The Cheetah Girls are now three: Adrienne Bailon plays Chanel; Sabrina Bryan, Dorinda; and Kiely Williams, Aquanetta. Raven-Symone, who played Galleria, is gone.
“Raven has her own brand now,” executive producer Debra Martin Chase says. “And the Cheetah Girls . . . had a sold-out 90-day [tour], one of the top tours of 2006. It just became hard to merge the two brands.”
Galleria’s absence is explained early on — she’s studying at Cambridge. That expository bit of dialogue illustrates why this series is great for girls. She is a star, yet she is working hard at her education.
The others are also on the precipice of major changes: They just graduated from high school, and college looms. They blow an audition and waffle over continuing their careers.
They wind up auditioning for Vik (Michael Steger), who’s directing a Bollywood movie for his uncle, a producer. Vik is the only miscast character. While it’s wonderful to be colorblind, and obviously many roles can be played by anyone, this part calls for the actor to be Indian, and he is not.
That aside, the movie is a delightful romp. The girls go to India, thinking they are going to star in his picture. When the girls arrive in India, they discover Vik’s uncle (Roshan Seth, “A Passage to India”) only wants one girl, and he pits them against one another.
“The movie is actually not so much about competition as it is the three of us facing the inevitable change that comes with getting older and something that we are slightly unprepared for,” Williams says. “We don’t really know what the future holds for us and how we’re actually going to stay together when we’re going off to different schools and, you know, our lives are taking us in different directions.”
“The story line is very realistic,” Bryan adds. “When girls graduate from high school, everyone kind of goes all over the map as far as where they’re going to school and what they’re going to do with their lives, and it’s the true friendships that continuously hold on.”
Though they arrive without boyfriends, Aqua has one of those only-in-a-musical moments. While in the States, she was calling computer tech support in India, despite not really needing it. She falls for one of the support techs on the phone. They meet, fortuitously, at sunset on a footbridge. Amar (Kunal Sharma) is smart, sweet, handsome and fabulously wealthy (this is why we love movies).
Meanwhile, the girls meet the movie’s star, resident heartthrob Rahim (Rupak Ginn). Though reared in New York, Ginn is first-generation American, and his parents send him to India yearly. “I feel binational,” he says.
Once he landed this role, Ginn rented the first two films. The 2003 one was set in New York (though shot in Canada), and the 2006 sequel was shot in Barcelona. (Both movies also air multiple times this week on the Disney Channel.)
“I love the themes of girl power, and we see so much media that is male-dominated and doesn’t have female protagonists and women not viable as lead characters,” he says
The Cheetah Girls, absolutely viable lead characters, shine here, partly because of the dance. Choreographer Fatima Robinson cleverly blended hip-hop steps with Indian movements.
“I basically took class in the very beginning and learned some of the what we call Bollywood basics in the way of dance and then incorporated it in my style of dance,” she says. “So it was really just, you know, merging those two worlds together and coming up with some really cool stuff that kids haven’t seen here in America.”
American kids may also be unfamiliar with the exquisite outfits. Mona May, who created the fad of the plaid skirt and socks over the knees with “Clueless,” had a grand time designing more than 500 costumes for this.
As the girls sing and dance their way through problems and maintain their friendship, they also ride a spectacularly enormous 73-year-old elephant. It’s undeniably a feel-good flick, and the Cheetah Girls keep their friendship strong while experiencing a new culture.
On the Cover: Kiely Williams, from left, Sabrina Bryan and Adrienne Bailon.
