Fired Up!

The “pitch” must have been something like this: “It's Wedding Crashers meets Bring It On.” In filmmaker Will Gluck's Fired Up!, Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen costar as unconscionable teen lotharios who ditch the football team to join the cheerleading squad and spend a week at “cheer camp” with 300 high-school hotties. The hunky horndogs have their way with innumerable partners in PG-13 liaisons (the ubiquitous unrated DVD version is also available), but then come to believe in the sanctity of cheerleading and—even after being exposed as shameless seducers—help the feckless squad compete in the climactic cheer-off. Olsen, playing the more crass Nick Brady, elicits laughs with his surprisingly snappy pattern (which includes new sexual euphemisms such as “wrangling snooch”). D'Agosto, as the marginally more sensitive Shawn Colfax, is well matched with cute Sarah Roemer, playing the squad leader. And Molly Sims is on hand for the sexy older woman role as the sultry wife of head cheer coach John Michael Higgins. While technically this is just another in the long line of American Pie retreads, Fired Up! does boast some clever, genuinely funny throwaway lines…but not enough to make it any more than an optional purchase, at best. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Will Gluck and costars Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen, the 16-minute “making-of” featurette “This Is Not a Cheerleading Movie,” an eight-minute gag reel, a “Double Duty” featurette on cheer camp (7 min.), a “Press Junket-Hour 12 Footage” gag featurette (2 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is the combination of the unrated and theatrical versions, a bonus digital copy of the unrated version, and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a so-so comedy.] (E. Hulse)