Fired Up

In 1980, Mad Magazine attempted to follow in the footsteps of rival humor magazine, National Lampoon, and break into the world of movies with the seldom-seen (and rightfully so) teen sex comedy, Up the Academy. Apparently the magazine staff knew what a turkey the film turned out to be, as they actually disowned the film in print, and even went so far as to praise one of the actors from the movie who decided he wanted his name taken out of the credits. The end result is that the movie came and left theaters with hardly anyone noticing, and the guys at Mad got to take one last shot at the stinker by doing what they do best - Parodying the film in their own magazine.

What does all of this have to do with Fired Up? A quick search on the Internet reveals that this movie was originally intended to be Maxim magazine's big break into feature films, but their name has been removed from all advertising and press material. They had the good sense to hide their involvement. If the cast and crew were smart, they would have thought of fake names to try to distance themselves from this lame teen sex comedy that has very little sex and even less comedy. Thanks to the magic of the PG-13 rating, we can have a movie that merely hints at non-stop sex, female nudity, and dated gay and lesbian humor. Even if the film has been "cleaned up" (this was obviously intended to be an R), there's still a scuzzy and uncomfortably sleazy feeling that flows throughout the movie that leaves the viewer squirming instead of laughing. Am I saying the movie automatically would have been good if it had been free to show its true adult colors? Not really. But at least then it would have been trying.

Watching this thing, I kept on thinking back on another movie I saw a few months ago called Sex Drive. Very few people saw that movie in the theater, but it was a wonderful little film that embraced its raunchy teen roots, while also showing an inspired absurdist humor and characters we could actually care about. Fired Up is the complete opposite, as there's nothing here I could possibly care about. This film creaks and moans through its tired humor and leaden plot about two high school football players who consider themselves ladies men, and decide to skip football camp for cheerleader camp so that they can be surrounded by beautiful girls for three weeks. How do they pull this scam off? I'll get back to that. I want to talk about the fact that our two heroes are played by Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen. The fact that the movie tries to pass these men who are pushing 30 (D'Agosto is 28 and Olsen is 31.) as high school students is funnier than anything in the movie itself. It also adds a touch of awkwardness to the subplot where Olsen's character falls for an "older woman", who happens to be 30. D'Agosto at least has some awkwardness and timidness on display sometimes, but Olsen seems to think he's the next Jim Carrey in his performance. Just because you took over for Carrey in a prequel to Dumb and Dumber that nobody saw doesn't make it so.

So, the two guys pass themselves off as male cheerleaders so they can get into the camp. One of the girls on their school's squad (Sarah Roemer from Disturbia) doesn't buy their forced enthusiasm at first, but soon begins to fall for D'Agosto's character. Of course, she's already hooked up with a guy who's a total jerk (David Walton). Also as to be expected, their school cheerleading team stinks, and are always being mocked by the more popular rival team from another school. I guess we're supposed to care about these two guys learning a new appreciation for women and for cheerleading in general, but the movie's dead in the water. Every gag and line of dialogue falls with a deafening thud. Even the choreography for the cheer routines is uninspired, as the girls seem to be doing the same tricks over and over. We keep on waiting for some spark of wit in the screenplay, but the closest thing we get is the high school football coach (played by veteran actor Philip Baker Hall) says the word "shit" a lot. Apparently, it only takes a couple "F-bombs" to earn an R, but you can say shit as much as you want, and still get by with a PG-13. I'm sure the kids who made up a majority of my screening (who looked no older than 11) went home with a new appreciation for the word.

The whole thing only runs just short of 90 minutes, but feels a lot longer than that. That's because the movie feels needlessly padded. It's almost as if first-time director Will Gluck and first-time screenwriter Freedom Jones didn't know how to fill out their thin premise, so they keep on falling back on the same jokes. Remember, if you're desperate for a laugh, have the girls triumphantly yell out "F.U.", because the name of the cheerleading camp is Fired Up University. (Wouldn't that make it "F.U.U.?") And what could be funnier than having the guys being forced to bunk with not one, but two, gay stereotypes who don't even exist as actual characters in the screenplay? The movie aims for easy targets, and still misses the point, by not even doing anything with these characters in the first place.

I can't think of another movie this year (except maybe Bride Wars) that I wanted to walk out early from than Fired Up. And yet, I toughed it out, and was even the only person who stuck around for the outtakes and bloopers during the end credits. Usually, these sort of things are a treat for the audience. Here, it makes the movie resemble someone who just won't leave you alone and let you go on with your life. The outtakes and alternate scenes kept on coming, and all I could think to myself was what a miserable little movie this is.

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