Fired Up! Review

Posted by on March 11th, 2009   Filed under: Comedy, Movie Review

Shawn and Nick are two high school womanizers who have cycled their way through practically every girl in school. The guys decide to expand their horizons by trading football practice for cheer camp, where 300 girls will be attending.

As a die hard Cheersploitation enthusiast, I have been eagerly waiting for a movie that catches the magic of that pinnacle of the sub-genre, Bring It On. Though Fired Up! doesn’t quite reach those lofty heights, it’s certainly the best contender released so far this century.

The best part of Fired Up! is the one thing that’s usually cast aside in these types of films; the dialogue. Rather than rely entirely on hard bodies and gross out gags, Fired Up! packed its duration with rapid fire banter and non sequiturs straight out of a screwball comedy, to the point that they even snuck in a reference to Hepburn and Tracy. While the ratio of good jokes to bad wasn’t especially high, Fired Up! dealt in bulk, throwing as many zingers at the audience as it could and hoping that at least some of it stuck. Also on tap were a wide assortment of zany supporting characters, papering over the few cracks when the two leads needed to take a break. These ancillary characters were utilized especially well during scenes with heavy exposition, performing sight gags in the distance that broke up the tedium.

The main thing holding back Fired Up! is its rating. Rather than risk it for the biscuit, they’ve played it safe and aimed for a limiting PG-13. Fired Up! does an admirable job making up for the lack of nudity, but it falters in the restrictions placed on swearing. It seems that the word ‘shit’ is safe, since it’s used dozens of times throughout, but practically every other swear word is verboten. This was especially painful whenever anyone referred to genitalia, for which the actors were forced to use euphemisms that would make a third-grader cringe. Each instance was a sour note that marred an otherwise enjoyable teen sex comedy, and I would have rather the characters didn’t refer to their ‘produce’ and ‘nutter butters’ at all rather than see them embarrass themselves.

Despite my gripes, in this era of the dramedy it’s nice to come across a comedy this stupidly eager to please. Panthers out!

SCORE: 2.5 stars



Recommended If You Like: Bring It On, American Pie, Ski School



  • Wintle, Film Junk needed someone to review mainstream movies like you. I thought you were going to solely review the Asian cinema and horror genres, but it seems like you have more movie-going depth in you than I expected. So may we be expecting a Hannah Montana: The Movie review next month. Ha ha.

    BTW, your opinion agrees with some other mainstream reviews that I’ve read about this film.

  • I admit that I probably will concentrate on those types of movies that I’m most familiar with, like horror and action, but hopefully I’ll post something outside my comfort zone every once in a while. Unfortunately, I don’t think that will mean that I’ll be making it to Hannah Montana.

  • When this movie started I was about to turn it off. It looked to me like two actors who should have been played by other actors, thinking Owen Wilson and Zach Effron? Anyway I didn’t have anything better to do, so I kept watching and, at times, found myself laughing out loud and guffawing here and there.

    Many one liners that I will remember (Or try to with my old brain), like “I thought that was prohibidibado” (Visual joke). Or when they were watching “Bring it On” and everybody was talking, word for word, with the movie. Hahahaha

    What I wondered was if the movie new how stupid it was, kinda making it campy. Don’t know, probably putting much more into it than it deserves, but, what can I say? This will go into my guilty pleasures memories.