I knew a person back in college who nearly tried out for the cheerleading squad. While that might not sound unusual, it was back in the mid 1980s at a school not known for such extracurricular organized cheering, and to top it off, that person was a guy. Of course, there's nothing wrong with male cheerleaders, especially now that such rah-rah-sis-boom-bah sideline activity has turned into a competitive sport of its own.
Back then, however, it was decidedly un-cool for a guy to consider, and this person was only thinking of joining the squad because his girlfriend at the time wanted him to. Fortunately for him, we talked him off the pyramid, so to speak, which is a good thing since his kids to this day still tease him about even considering that.
For Nick and Shawn, star players of the Gerald R. Ford High School football team, they similarly want to join the cheerleading squad. Yet, while "love" is also their reason, it's of just of the physical and not emotional and/or romantic variety. They've apparently run through all of the available girls locally, and upon hearing that 300 or so will be attending a cheer camp, the two guys decide that sounds like an unlimited smorgasbord and thus attend that rather than football camp.
Their efforts make up the bulk of the shenanigans of "Fired Up!" a comedy best described as "American Pie" meets "Bring It On." As those two titles would suggest, it's a combination of raucous sex comedy and hip cheerleader dramedy, complete with enough snarky comments, slang and cultural references to make the likes of "Juno" sound like a staid congressional hearing on banking in comparison.
In fact, it's the latter that provides the film's funniest moments but also continuously threatens to overload the viewer's ears and patience regarding the preponderance of witty comments (such as "That's close enough, Jonas brother" and "Not here Shawshank," to name just a few of the plethora offered up). At first, I found all of that annoying in the sense of the film trying too hard to be the hippest of the land, but after a while -- and, I suppose, after my resistance to all of that was worn down by the never-ending onslaught -- it slightly grew on me.
Beyond that, there's the sex comedy material, with D'Agosto and Olson (who don't even come close to passing for high school aged guys, what with being 28 and 31) taking over the sort of characters that populated the "American Pie" films. But the PG-13 rating hampers what the filmmakers -- director Will Gluck and screenwriter Freedom Jones -- can get away with, while Nick isn't as wild and impishly devil-may-care as Stifler (although he's clearly cut from the same mold) and Shawn is just a composite of the rest of male "AP" personas.
While some younger viewers might laugh at the barely covered nude scenes (the guys unexpectedly ending up that way, and being forced to cheer au naturel with just pompoms and camera angles to cover anything too explicit), it's nothing we haven't seen before and certainly isn't as clever as what they did in the "Austin Powers" movies (or the old "Benny Hill" show decades before that).
The film also runs the risk of inviting too many comparisons to "Bring It On," not only in just the subject matter, rival cheer camps, the big competition, and those snarky remarks and gestures, but also in actually showing clips from that previous pic. The latter occurs at an outdoor screening where all of the cheer camp attendees recite lines from the pic in unison. It's a funny bit, but it can't help but remind viewers of the far better film.
It certainly doesn't help that the pacing, overall direction and editing are substandard, giving this effort a choppy and rushed feel. Throw in a predictable plot (will anyone be surprised that the guys end up helping the squad rather than just trying to bed everyone, or that D'Agosto's character will end up falling for the squad leader played by Sarah Roemer, who's also too old for the part?) and the result isn't as enjoyable or entertaining as it obviously thinks it is. While there are some fun and funny moments, there simply aren't enough to overcome the rest of the film's problems. "Fired Up!" rates as a 4 out of 10.
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