“Fired Up!” can only be taken seriously as a joke. The comedy flick is really unrealistic and seems like it was taken from a teenager’s fantasy.

Friends Shawn Colfax, played by Nicholas D’Agosto (Heroes, The Office) and Nick Brady (Eric Christian Olsen) are High School football players and best friends who score both on the field and with the ladies — no joke, they seem to get every girl at Gerald R. Ford High school.

Shawn and Nick have mastered the art of getting girls and have taken it a step further by developing the art into a science, it’s all the two think about.

Dialogue between them include:
“What do you want to do?”
“That brunette in the 3rd row.”

Their “charm” combined with cheesy pickup lines seem to work with pretty much every girl except for Carly (Sarah Roemer, who kind of looks like Amy Smart), leader of the school’s disastrous cheerleading squad. Although the boys are scheduled to attend football training in Texas, they discover there’s such a thing called cheerleading camp.

They solicit the help of Shawn’s younger sister Poppy (played by 13 year old Juliette Goglia) who miraculously whips the guys into fantastic male cheerleaders. Realizing the cheerleading squad would need to shake things up in order to move from the bottom spot at cheer camp’s competition, Carly agrees Shawn and Nick should become members of the team and join them for the summer.

Needless to say the two ditch football for pom poms in seconds and the fantasy begins. Cheer camp is one of the only camps where the straight guy to girl ratio is about 1 to 200. It’s also probably the only camp where horny girls swim in moonlit ponds at night, wearing just a bra and underwear, and will agree to make out with guys after seconds of getting to know them.

Although there is definitely some shining talent like Shawn’s sister Poppy — who acts like a 50 year-old candy dealer — former “Even Stevens” star Margo Harshman as the blunt and slightly creepy cheerleader Sylvia, and Carly’s prick of a boyfriend who claims he’s a doctor (even though he’s only in his first year of pre-med), it’s not enough to make the movie entertaining throughout its full length.

It’s clear the film is somewhat spoofing cheer leading dramas like “Bring It On”. In fact, at one point the entire camp chants the words to the Kirsten Dunst flick as they sit outside. And of course, there has to be a skinny blonde leader of the rival team, played by 90210’s AnnaLynne McCord. But that doesn’t make it any better than the original cheerleading movies.

Moviegoers born prior to 1990 may not get some of the pop-culture-induced jokes including “That’s close enough Jonas Brother.” Still, most people with a comedic bone in them will laugh at one or two jokes, at least. The movie is filled with pretty much the worst pick up lines you could ever use without getting slapped and great minor character’s like Coach Keith, played by John Michael Higgins.

Also the bromance chemistry between Shawn and Nick is at its max, a plus in the movie — they would definitely make MTV’s Brody Jenner proud. But it’s still not enough to pull the comedy into “American Pie” status.

So if you’re looking for a light comedy with a predictable ending, an inseparable high school duo, a blonde mean girl, multiple make-out scenes and a storyline that would only happen in your dreams, “Fired Up!” is a perfect match. If not, the fact that they make fun of crocs — those colourful plastic shoes — is worth seeing the film.






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