Grade: C-
If you like leering frat-boy-quality farces—and lots of moviegoers do, as the “American Pie” franchise proved—trek on down to “Fired Up!” It’s a cheesy campus comedy about two Illinois high-school football jocks who decide to sign up for a summer cheerleading camp to continue their string of romantic conquests in an arena where there’ll be little if any competition.
What follows offers absolutely no surprises. The presence of Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto), the cool, dark-haired quarterback, and Nick (Eric Christian Olsen), the shaggy blonde, smart-ass receiver, is initially met with incredulous stares from the cheerleaders, but since they’re among the few straight dudes at the camp set at the fictitious Southeast Illinois University, they have no trouble scoring (though we’re never shown them going further than harming snuggling). But Shawn falls for Carly (Sarah Roemer), the head of their school’s squad, who’s the only girl who has no trouble resisting him—and an obnoxious boyfriend Rick (David Walton) to boot—until he learns sensitivity and her defenses crumble. Meanwhile Nick’s frustrated by his inability to seduce Diora (Molly Sims), wife of the crazy head instructor (John Michael Higgins) at the camp—until his own unexpectedly sensitive side comes out, too.
Then there’s the inevitable competition between the Tigers and their inveterate rivals, the regimented Panthers, led with storm trooper efficiency by catty Gwyneth (Annalynne McCord). That culminates in a final face-off that turns out somewhat differently from the one in “Bring It On” (a portion of which is actually screened at one point) but not much better.
The script credited to one Freedom Jones (whose personal existence is subject to question) actually has a few good lines, mostly in the machine-gun dialogue exchanges between Shawn and Nick, and D’Agosto and Olsen are actually more ingratiating than you might expect (though they’re way too old to be convincing high-schoolers, Olsen has a tendency to ham things up, and the switches between them and stuntmen in the routines are no more convincing than the ones in “The Pink Panther 2”). It also features an easygoing attitude to gay humor that’s actually rather refreshing in a flick like this—less mean-spirited than is often the case—as well as foregoing the grosser forms of toilet humor that are all too characteristic of the genre (despite the surname of one of the producers).
On the other hand, it’s burdened by the badly-written character of Rick, who’s played in so stentorian a fashion by Walton that you wonder from frame one why Carly, who’s supposed to be a bright girl, would tolerate him for an instant, and who hogs entirely too much screen time. One also has to regret the presence of Philip Baker Hall, who’s stuck in an embarrassing part as the guys’ football coach, who uses the excremental word at every opportunity. The figure of Shawn’s precocious, deal-making younger sister (Juliette Goglia) also seems like a poor John Hughesian clone, although Goglia is definitely a scene-stealer. (The Hughes connection is reinforced by the presence of Edie McClurg, of “Ferris Bueller” fame, as the squad supervisor.) And the repeated bit—which comes back in the final credits, too—of having the characters shout about getting “fired up” through the use of the simple “FU” is a cheap gag obviously designed to generate titters from young viewers while retaining a hold on an adolescent-friendly PG-13 rating.
Technically the picture is adequate, though the California locations don’t look any more like Illinois than D’Agosto and Olsen do high-schoolers.
As far as this sort of raunchy campus comedy goes, “Fired Up!” isn’t as bad as you might expect. (Remember “College”?) It’s more along the lines of “John Tucker Must Die” or “Sex Drive.” But of course that doesn’t mean it’s good.