Starring Raven-Symone, Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan, and Kiely Williams
Directed by Kenny Ortega
Music and Lyrics by various
The Cheetah Girls was a smash success on The Disney Channel. It turned the four singers into superstars and made them household words among pre-teen girls, who admired their spunk and powerful messages of sisterhood. With success like that, a sequel was inevitable. Disney really stepped up its game, adding more music and dance and bringing in Ortega, a director and choreographer who just came off the blockbuster High School Musical. How well did he do with this girl-power franchise? Let's begin in New York, where the girls are performing for the end of their junior year, and find out...
The Story: Chanel (Bailon) is upset when her mother Juanita (Lori Alter) insists on taking Chanel to Barcelona, Spain to meet her boyfriend Luc (Abel Folk) for the summer. The Girls are disappointed they'll be separated, until Galleria (Raven-Symone) hits on them joining the Barcelona Music Festival. They convince Galleria's mother Dorothea (Lynn Whitfield) it'll be perfect for their summer vacation.
Everything does go well in Barcelona at first. Galleria encounters a cute guitarist at a local club named Angel (Peter Vives), while Dorinda falls for the handsome son of a count who works as a dancer (Golan Yosef) and Aquanetta (Williams) is thrilled to meet her fashion designer idol. The girls are thrilled to meet Spanish pop star Marisol (Belinda) and her mother Lola (Kim Manning) at the club. Lola sees how well Chanel and Marisol sing together and decides Chanel would be perfect to help her daughter win the Festival after losing three years running...but that would require breaking up the Cheetah Girls...
The Song and Dance: Ortega's input makes all the difference here. This is a full-on musical, with chorus numbers, reprises, and the entire cast joining in, rather than the girls singing a few numbers crammed into a silly plot. It also helps that the cast is now older and more mature. They've grown literally and figuratively quite a bit in the three years between movies, and while they still scream a little more than necessary, they've otherwise shed many of their more annoying traits and admit when they've behaved badly.
The movie being filmed in the real Barcelona helps as well. The colorful scenery and use of actual Spanish locations goes a long way to bringing authentic Spanish flavor to the decidedly American plot.
Favorite Number: We kick off in high style with the number the Cheetah Girls perform at graduation, "The Party's Just Begun." Angel helps the girls to "Strut" at the club on their first day in Barcelona. Marisol asks "Why Wait?" for stardom when she's already a superstar while doing her number at the club. The Spanish number "A La Nanita Nana" is the big song Chanel and Marisol sing together that convinces Lola she'd be a perfect partner for her daughter. "Dance With Me" shows off some great tango moves as Dorinda falls for Joaquin the count's son at his dance class. The girls think "It's Over" when Galleria believes she's lost Chanel's friendship and the girls realize they haven't been spending much time together.
"Amigas Cheetahs" is the big finale, as the girls and all the people they befriended in Barcelona come together to blow the Festival away with their dramatic costumes and message of sisterhood. Appropriately, there's incredible costumes in this sequence, along with some of the movie's best moves.
What I Don't Like: The girls may be juniors, but their dialogue remains strictly freshman-level. It still sounds like they're trying too hard to be "hip." Clichés abound in the fairly dull plot. Dorothea shouldn't have been the only one who figured out what Lola was up to ages before the girls did. Her intentions were telegraphed from a mile off. Frankly, the whole thing is only slightly less silly than last time.
The Big Finale: I do give it credit for being a huge improvement over the first film...but that cliched and dated plot assures that it's still best for pre-teen girls, their families, and anyone who grew up watching this on The Disney Channel as a kid.
Home Media: Same deal here - easily available on DVD and streaming.
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