Fired Up

Hollywood has a silly habit of casting old for teen comedies. (Stockard Channing as Betty Rizzo, hel-lo!) Even by "Grease" standards, however, the pushing-30 Nicholas D'Agosto and 31-year-old Eric Christian Olsen seem a bit long in the tooth to be donning the antic mask of the sexually irrepressible high school jock.

Which may explain the ever-so-slightly paternalistic edge that creeps into their characters, Shawn and Nick, in "Fired Up," an arduous cheerleader comedy geared toward those too green to know that cheerleader comedies went out long before the last pompom shake of "Bring It On."

That cunning Kirsten Dunst frolic is watched with reverence by the cheerleaders-in-training at Southern Illinois University, where ex-footballers Shawn and Nick have insinuated themselves in hopes of fulfilling their wildest carnal dreams. The bodacious babes who make up the camp's majority know just what the guys are up to, but they inevitably give in because the fellas are single-minded, straight and cute, in that cookie-cutter, Ashton Kutcher-y way that ensures an actor steady employment on network television shows like "Heroes" and "Brothers & Sisters."

"Fired Up" is the debut writing effort of one Freedom Jones, who is shackled by an oppressive penchant for snark and a film student's glib tendency to reference older and infinitely better movies. It is no more homophobic or cluttered with potty-mouthed braggadocio than your garden-variety, post-"American Pie" teen farce. Will Gluck directs with frantic, go-for-broke pacing, which is what you do when your reserves of wit are bankrupt.


-- Jan Stuart (Feb. 20, 2009)Contains crude and sexual content, partial nudity, language and teen partying.