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Friday
20Feb2009

Movie Review - 'Fired Up!'

DateFriday, February 20, 2009 at 12:01AM
Fired Up!

Featuring Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, and Sarah Roemer
Directed by Will Gluck
Rated PG-13

firedup_galleryteaser.jpg At least that old commercial about getting somebody's peanut butter on somebody else's chocolate produced a good result. Fired Up! is a bald-faced combination of Wedding Crashers and Bring It On, and the results are nowhere near as satisfying as a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, or either one of the films it’s so brazenly raiding.

Cheerleading movies are more plentiful than they should be. After all, Bring It On, while nobody's idea of a movie for the archives, does exactly what it's supposed to do. Making a sequel doesn't add anything and spoofing it doesn't work, because it's already a form of self-parody.

It turns out waiting nine years to recycle the concept fails, too. Fired Up! is set at a cheerleading camp, where two high school football players (Eric Christian Olsen and Nicholas D'Agosto) join their school's cheer squad in hopes of scoring a lot of chicks. That's the Wedding Crashers angle. If you need a less abstract link, Olsen's shaggy Owen Wilson hairstyle should do the trick.

There are two or three surprising laughs here – thanks to the riffing of Christopher Guest favorite John Michael Higgins – primarily because you don't expect anything in Fired Up! to be funny. As the guys try to sleep with every girl in camp, Fired Up! pulls out the most trusty and falsly ringing weapon of storytelling: The characters learn a little bit about themselves along the way, despite all evidence to the contrary.

As a consolation prize, the audience learns something, too. We learn that getting to know the cheerleaders in wolves' clothing is a real drag.

Another disappointment is that the movie's best character is also its biggest louse, the ex-boyfriend of the head cheerleader (Sarah Roemer from Disturbia) who calls himself Dr. Rick (David Walton). He's a first year med student, and as for the nickname, "Why put off the inevitable." He's the Chet character in Weird Science, only Weird Science had more than Chet going for it.

And why this comedy is PG-13 is a mystery. The characters actually censor their own dialogue, coming up with PG-13 ways to say what the R-rated situations mandate. And of course, a movie with this much implied sex on its mind should actually have some sex. It's rated R content stuffed in a PG bag.

One final note: Eric Christian Olsen plays an incoming high school senior. He's 31. At what point do you start turning down the high school roles?


Watch the Fired Up! trailer

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AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment4 Comments |

Reader Comments (4)

Maybe that's what he loves about these high school movies, Eric Christian Olsen keeps getting older, but they stay the same age.

Friday, February 20, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterEmo

Why oh WHY is anyone with the surname Olsen still getting acting roles?

Friday, February 20, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterJMK

Found the movie online at http://leafpen.com/firedup Just had to fill out some lame survey to get the movie to play. Not sure how long it will stay up...

Saturday, February 21, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterjason

OH I TOTALLY LOVED THIS MOVIE!! i like how the doctor boyfriend calls carly all those stupid nicknames...Carly horse, Carly Fries, carls barkley... lol so cute! i'm gonna go work on my reverse cartwheels now....peace

Monday, March 30, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterjeannie bean

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