The trailer for Fired Up! (Screen Gems, February 20) is online, and not inspiring much confidence about the current state of genre screenwriting. The plot? Two high school guys, Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) and Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto, great in the under-seen Rocket Science), are dreading the prospect of another summer at football camp. So when Nick hatches a scheme for the two to follow their school’s cheerleaders to cheer camp instead, they find themselves awash in a sea of gorgeous young women. Everything goes great until Shawn falls for Carly (Sarah Roemer), the beautiful head cheerleader who sees right through their plot.
The sort of naked brazenness with which Bring It On is ripped off comes across as eye-stabbingly bad, sure, but more damning is the fact that this trailer seems to go on for-ever, which is not a good sign for the movie’s long-play prospects. With presumably a bit more forward-leaning of a character, Roemer, aka the chick from Disturbia, gets a chance to prove her mettle in something else, and survive and advance in the Hollywood starlet sweepstakes. Other thoughts: the 31-year-old Olsen as a high schooler, no matter how jocked out, is a real stretch… and if John Michael Higgins shouldn’t yet completely stop receiving work, he should definitely be excised from trailer rotation. His hiring now says one thing, and one thing only: sure, we didn’t write a funny character, but we paid a little bit extra to get this guy you’ve seen before, in the hopes that he has some residual goodwill still in the tank.
It’s curious to try to sell a PG-13 movie with a big poster that reads “F.U.” isn’t it? Still, Sarah Roemer is hot, though, you gotta admit.
This movie has nothing to do with Bring It on. Just b/c theres cheerleading doesn’t equal BIO. The trayler looked really funny and I can’t wait to see it. Why is everyone such haters who have a movie blog?