Fired Up
Posted on June 9, 2009 at 8:00 am
Yes, this is a dumb little teen sex comedy that repeatedly tries to generate hilarity with a cheer involving the initials of its title. Yes, it spends a lot of camera time focusing on tight little shorts on tight little tushes. Yes, it tries for the best of both worlds by presenting us with heroes who are major playas for most of the film with some lessons learned and spiritually enlarging experiences just in time for (and during) the closing credits. Yes, the high school junior heroes are played by actors who are at least a decade older than their characters. But as dumb little teen sex comedies go, this one could have been a lot worse.
Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) have just one goal — to get with as many lovely young ladies as possible as frequently as possible. Very effective singly, they are all but unstoppable with each other as wingmen. When it is time to go to El Paso for football training camp, they decide that rather than go to hot, dry, girl-free Texas they will instead go where the girls are, cheerleading camp. Though the camp is three weeks long, they plan to leave early to spend time at a friend’s vacation home.
Carly (Sarah Roemer), the captain of the cheerleaders, is a very attractive girl who is unprecedentedly impervious to Nick’s charm (and also impervious to the obnoxiousness of her pretentious boyfriend). Shawn does very well with the cheerleaders but increasingly finds himself attracted to the co-cheerleader coach (Milly Sims), even though she is married to her co-coach (Michael John Higgins, born to do spirit fingers) and, in his word, “old.” While Shawn and Nick are focused on getting as much as they can from as many girls as they can, the girls are focused on competing with the champion Panthers.
No surprises along the way — except perhaps how poorly the cheerleading routines are photographed and how much you can get away with in a PG-13 movie — but D’Agosto and Olsen have an easy rhythm and the movie wisely makes their comeuppances more sweet than humiliating. Its attempts to temper its homophobic humor are weak. But it nicely makes the point that the girls who get a boy’s attention and respect are those who respect themselves enough to insist on trust and affection before they will get involved.
Parents should know that this is an extremely raunchy movie with many crude sexual references and situations. The main characters only want to have sex with as many different girls as possible and many girls are fine with that. While there is some respect for the gay characters, it has the usual teen comedy homophobic humor. The characters use some very crude language and there are sexual references and situations.
Family discussion: Were you surprised to find out what was in the notebook? Why was Carly different?
If you like this, try: “Bring it On” (which the characters in this movie watch together, reciting the lines in rapturous unison)
saw the movie last night and it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be its about the two football players that want to score with the over 300 cheerleaders and end up enjoying thier time there actually getting invovled in helping the tigers get out of the cellar in the competetion . not anything that you have to think about but not bad enjoyed it they had a very good cast and it was easy top follow.
I took my 13 year old daughter and I was the only adult in the entire movie. The place was full of 6th-8th grade girls. To be honest, I was a little embarassed at times. LOTS of sexual scenes. The entire movie was based on how many girls the two main guy characters could sleep with. I’ll have to admit the movie was very funny. It was a pretty good movie, with a good plot. However, I think it was pretty strong for middle schoolers. My opinion, way too much bad language and sex scenes.
Thanks for the comment — I agree! As you can see, I recommend it for mature high schoolers, meaning juniors and seniors. It was not a bad movie, but not appropriate for young teens and tweens.