Fired Up! (Sony Pictures)
The Worlds Oldest Teenagers
If you were making a movie about high school cheerleaders, what age would you want your cast to be I think most of us would answer between sixteen and twenty. I mean a twenty year old can usually pass for sixteen and a sixteen year old can pass for twelve or thirteen with the right makeup, etc. Why then did the makers of Fired Up!, a movie about teenagers, cast actors who are in their late twenties
The movie centers around two high school juniors, Shawn and Nick. They are played by Nicholas DAgosto and Eric Christian Olsen. DAgosto is twenty-eight years old and Olsen is thirty-one! The head cheerleader in the film is Carly who is played by Sarah Roemer. Roemer is twenty-four. And the list goes on.
The two guys decide it is smarter to go to cheerleading camp with a bevy of beautiful females than to go to football camp with only guys. The odds are much better and they will have a summer camp to remember. And they do!
The movie is vaguely reminiscent of Bring It On! Kristin Dunst starred in that very popular cheerleading film. But this one is only half as entertaining. One reason is you never see much cheerleading by the main team. You see other kids do amazing things but the movie centered group is just going through the motions.
The characters all come off as likeable in the film but none stand out. The only actor who makes any kind of impression is David Walton who plays Carlys medical school boyfriend Rick. He makes an impression because he is so unlikable.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity, sexual situations and partial nudity.
Fired Up! is pretty harmless entertainment. It has a lot of sexual innuendoes and more than enough profanity, but as this type of comedies runs it is fairly mild. The problem is that age thing. All of these guys and girls look just a little old for their roles and if you cant believe the ages then you cant believe the storyline.
Olsen and DAgosto are not such great or popular actors that you had to have them to draw a crowd. They certainly could have been replaced with two actual teenage guys and no one would have noticed the difference. And it would have made the movie much more believable.
I scored Fired Up! an extinguished 4 out of 10.
