Review: ‘Fired Up!’

Jeremy:

There’s a pretty big distraction found throughout the new comedy ‘Fired Up!’. Â  Actually there are a couple, but I’m dealing with this one right now. Â  The film is a PG-13 movie in R-rated clothing. Â  Or it’s an R-rated movie in PG-13-rated clothing. Â  Not sure which. Â  Either way, the movie is rated PG-13, but it acts, feels, and probably should be rated R.

Why is that such a distraction, you might ask? Â  It’s kind of unnerving whenever a film or even a person in a film, seems to be consciously holding back. Â  Case in point, on Eric Christian Olsen, the true star of the film. Â  He’s a funny actor who is much more suited for the R-rated films he has been in like ‘Not Another Teen Movie’ and ‘Beerfest’. Â  In movies like ‘Fired Up!’, he is clearly holding himself back.

It’s also strange to think that the filmmakers were even going for a PG-13 rating. Â  The screenplay had to have been R-rated. Â  There are countless scenes involving sex or talking about sex, but the director, Will Gluck, never seems to want to pull the trigger on the R-ratedness of it all.

It’s shocking the MPAA also gave the film a PG-13 rating, but that’s another argument for another time.

All of this stepping to the edge but never quite peering over it doesn’t keep ‘Fired Up!’ from being a funny movie, though. Â  It’s not a particularly good movie, but it is funny, nonetheless.

The idea of two popular high school guys attending cheerleading camp just to score is one for the ages. Â  It’s ripe for comedic gags and ridiculous pratfalls, and ‘Fired Up!’ doesn’t let any opportunity pass it by. Â  It’s a comedy that only works, because it plays the law of averages. Â  If you’re going to throw a thousand and one jokes at the audience, you only have to have half of them hit to make your audience laugh.

And that is pretty much the equation working here. Â  I’d say half of the jokes work. Â  The other half fall harder than a klutzy cheerleader trying to perform a triple tuck/pike dismount. Â  Don’t know what that means. Â  Don’t ask me.

The jokes and elements of ‘Fired Up!’ that hit do hit hard. Â  Olsen is hilarious. Â  David Walton as Dr. Rick, a major DB whose soundtrack to his life seems to come from the Now! CDs, is also pretty hilarious. Â  If you’re one of the people who thought the funnies part of ‘The Break-up’ was John Michael Higgins singing “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, you’re in for a real treat. Â  He kicks his comedic timing into high gear. Â  The “old guy who can’t stop swearing” gag has been done to death, but don’t tell Philip Baker Hall that. Â  The veteran actor plays that part to the hilt and doesn’t hold back on any one of his “shit”s.

Other jokes in the film were funny, but fleeting. Â  The mascots, only really seen in the background, could have been a major selling point on the movie. Â  Unfortunately, they aren’t really used to their ability, and we only get a scene or two with the Eagle that really shine.

Another one of those distractions in ‘Fired Up!’ is the straight man to Olsen’s wild child. Â  Nicholas D’Agosto is an annoying actor, one who seems to be reading his lines in every scene he’s in. Â  There are a handful of scenes involving him without Olsen, and those scenes are grueling to the say the very least.

You also can’t help but make mention of Olsen’s age. Â  The guy is 31-years-old, and here he is playing a high schooler. Â  It’s been done to death joking about middle-aged people playing teenagers, but that doesn’t stop films like this from falling into that same trap. Â  It’s so much more refreshing when you have a film like ‘Superbad’, where you have actors who, at least, seem to be able to remember their graduation.

‘Fired Up!’ is a funny movie. Â  I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me laugh out loud a number of times. Â  A lot of jokes work. Â  A lot of them don’t. Â  If you can get passed the myriad of distractions the filmmakers throw your way, you might actually walk away from it having had a fun, comedic experience.

[Overall: 3.25 stars out of 5]

Travis:

So, what do you get when you combine two teenage football jocks with little on their minds than girls with 300 stereotypically ditsy attractive high school cheerleaders in a movie that’s written almost entirely with sexual innuendo, gay and lesbian jokes, sarcastically witty retorts and references to other movies poking fun at it’s own genre… surprisingly, you get a shamefully laugh out-loud hilarious movie that’s wrong in so many ways, but laughter is inevitable.

Oh, crap… that was all one sentence! I suppose that is what it’s like watching ‘Fired Up!’ or, as cheerleading Coach Keith (John Michael Higgins) says, “FU!”. There are so many scenes that make you laugh, even though you sit there thinking how wrong it is to laugh or how mindlessly dumb it was, but it’s still funny. Basically, the story follows Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) and his buddy Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto) as they decide to skip football camp to attend cheerleading camp to be surrounded by 300 hot girls and add to their promiscuous chekclist.

From the very beginning of the movie, Nick and Shawn are firing off their crafty dialogue that would easily fit within the over-written classification that ‘Juno’ made famous. Their goal is simple… score with as many girls as possible, or, as Carly (Sarah Roemer) points out… “leave no girl unturned.” Are you starting to get the picture? As it turns out, Carly is the exception to the rule when it comes to cheerleaders in ‘Fired Up!’ as she has brains, common sense AND good looks. This, of course, proves an obstacle for Nick to overcome while pursuing her and leads to his having a metamorphosis into an actual human being. Meanwhile, Shawn relentlessly pursues the senior counselor named Doria (Molly Sims) and is befuddled at his repeated failure. Then again, the underlying message of the movie is “you gotta risk it to get the biscuit.” Yeah, it’s said like… countless times throughout the movie.

Some of the best parts of the movie come from the side players, like Shawn’s little sister Poppy (Juliette Goglia) who is almost frighteningly so mature and well-versed in the ways of high school teenage minds, sex and all things typically taboo that it’s just funny and cute, in a strange way. Dr. Dick, I mean Rick (David Walton) is such a hoser that you can’t help but hate his guts while laughing at his stupidity. Football Coach Byrnes (Philip Baker Hall) doesn’t have a major role, but he does have a classically textbook potty-humor scene that puts the spotlight on the S*** word. It’s not the best scene, but every movie like this has to have foul language, right?

This is only the beginning of the slightly over-the-top characters and situations in ‘Fired Up!’ and, while there’s not much of a story, it is there and it has a decent message about it. Fans of ‘Bring it On’ and ‘American Pie’ or any Seann William Scott comedy are bound to enjoy this movie. Overall, if you’re shopping for a movie that’s guaranteed to make you laugh on Friday night and not bog you down in plot details and a complicated story, then ‘Fired Up!’ is a decent return on your investment.

[Overall: 3.5 stars out of 5]

Ram Man:

Now I have seen it all…my first Cheerleading movie “Fired Up!”. This one is a soft-core sex romp with a couple of football stars from a local Illinois high-school that decide they need a change of female personnel and go to a cheerleading camp to meet girls.   It’s ‘Bring It On’ meets ‘Meatballs’.  

Nicolas D’Agosto (Heroes) and Eric Christian Olsen (Beerfest) play Shawn and Nick, football phenoms from Gerald R. Ford Highschool. They guys decide, after sleeping with virtually every girl in their school, they need a change in venue. So instead of accompanying the rest of the team to hot and sticky El Paso Texas for 2 weeks of football hell, our boys went for 3 weeks with over 300 lovely ladies at cheerleading camp. Good Choice. Nick and Shawn have almost everyone fooled except the squad’s captain Carly (Sarah Roemer), who knows the guys are just going to get with a new crop of chicks.

Some of the best things about this film come from it’s supporting players. Phillip Baker Hall and Molly Sims play the camp instructors. They are married…..which is funny because he is absolutely gay and she is a cougar that Nick has in his sites. Shawn’s little sister Poppy (Juliette Goglia) runs the camps black-market and would put the Mafia out of business. By far the funniest part of the film comes from Carly’s boyfriend Dr. Rick (David Walton). Everyone who knows him though calls him Dr. Dick. He provides the audience with horrible karaoke and forms the final piece in our cheery love triangle between Shawn and Carly.

‘Fired Up’ is a fun movie targeted at the younger teens. It does provide numerous laughs but also a dragged out bus scene to cheer camp that will make you want to vomit. The film does garner a PG-13 rating for numerous gay and lesbian sexual content, but there is no nudity.   It’s like the director (Will Gluck) started out making the Cheerleading version of ‘American Pie’ and remembered “I’m making this for teens” and slashed all of the F-bombs and nude scenes from the film. I did appreciate the end of the film was not all that predictable but still failed to make me do back-flips out of the theater.

[Overall: 2.75 stars out of 5]