Film

If today’s modern cheerleader—half porn star, half girl next door—distracts viewers from the game, shouldn’t the modern cheerleader movie distract us from a lack of minor incidentals like believable plot points and honest comic zingers? The u-g-l-y Fired Up ain’t got no alibi in this respect. When your heroes are a pair of dudular high-school jocks pursuing a “no girl left unturned” policy, the chirpy charms of Kirsten Dunst supplying sass to Bring It On seem distant indeed.

Puppyish chick magnet Shawn (D’Agosto) and golden-god football captain Nick (Olsen) have PG-13 scoring down to a science. Then it occurs to them that joining the cheerleading squad for two weeks of pom-pom training sounds way more fun than grunting in Arizona with sweaty guys and their profane coach (Philip Baker Hall in Secret Honor mode; how the mighty fall). Sure enough, cheerleading camp is a vision of lithe women in short shorts—the camera ogles—but conscience strikes; after much offscreen sack success, the boys find they kind of enjoy cheering, plus Shawn pursues sweet hometown girl Carly (Roemer). Note: They’re “too straight to be gay.”

Fired Up isn’t really a dirty movie, despite the vast amounts of female thigh on display, and it sports a marginally douchier evil boyfriend to make our heroes comparatively likable. But trashy values place this generic comedy decidedly in the Bush era: “Bet big or go home” morphs into “Get cocky, bitches!” You boggle at the idea that these hundreds of girls are merely regional competitors, not the finalists. How many more “cocky bitches” are there?