Fired Up!

**The better cheerleading movie! (Although it's much more focused on the laughs than the cheerleading)** Fired Up is the cheerleading version of Pitch Perfect. It overflows with dorky characters, hilariously strange situations, and gut-busting quotes that will stick with you. Fired Up knows it's completely and outlandishly ridiculous and enjoys every goofy second of its insane existence. The premise of 2 guys skipping football camp to chase girls at cheerleading camp sounds like every other teen film but Fired Up is surprisingly fun, witty, and at moments even endearing. Eric Christian Olsen and Nicholas D'Agosto make a fantastic comedy duo, building one-liners on top of each other with excellent chemistry and hilarity. And John Michael Higgins is just as crazed and entertaining as ever. Overall, Fired Up is a much better-than-average stupid humor movie with a cast and director that know how to do comedy.

**_Hilarious and heartwarming, but too much raunch in the air_** Two popular high school football jocks (Eric Christian Olsen and Nicholas D'Agosto) decide to go to cheerleading camp in the summer instead of football camp in order to score with the ladies. Their plans go awry when one falls one of the head cheerleaders (Sarah Roemer) and they both find themselves wanting to help the squad win the camp competition. The purpose of a teen dramadies like this is to entertain and elicit laughs; the great ones avoid too much raunchiness, etc. and offer strong subtexts (like 1995's "Clueless" and 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"). The good news is that "Fired Up" (2009) is surprisingly funny from beginning to end and it does have heartwarming elements. Despite being direct-to-video, it's obvious that a lot of thought and effort was put into the film. For it to be effective, Olsen and D'Agosto have to work well together and they do. Olsen was 31 during filming and D'Agosto was 28, hardly high school age, and – while they do a good job of appearing high school age – their overall demeanor give 'em away. As for the females, Sarah is striking as Carly and there are quite a few curvaceous beauties, including the brunette cheerleading coach. I would easily give "Fired Up" a grade of 'A-' if not for some unnecessary coarseness, implied raunch (in other words, there aren't any overtly raunchy scenes) and way too many 'gay'-oriented jokes. These aspects remove it from the realm of greatness, as far as I'm concerned. The movie runs 90 minutes and was shot in the Los Angeles area. GRADE: B