Fired Up!
Two sex-hungry high school jocks, who don’t fancy summer in a baking hot football training camp, decide to infiltrate the girls’ cheerleader training instead. It’s a blatantly misogynist notion for comedy, yet director Will Gluck pulls off a far better film than its synopsis might suggest, combining the better elements of the American Pie and Bring It On series to mildly pleasing effect.
While at least a decade longer in the tooth than any high-schooler should be, Eric Christian Olsen and Nicholas D’Agosto are personably cast as Nick and Shawn, idiot studs with a line in matey knockabout humour that harks back to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure by way of Dude, Where’s My Car?. Despite coming from the unpromisingly titled Gross Productions company, Fired Up! is surprisingly mature in the way it turns genre and gender expectations on their heads, with innuendo rather than swearing and little nudity on show as Nick and Shawn end up rejecting frat-boy foolishness to develop their feminine sides through pom-pom action.
(12A) 89min
General release from Fri 10 Jul.