catholiclefty

A Swedish film about a woman who wins a camera back in the days when such things were rare, Everlasting Moments has a great deal of technical proficiency on display but the underlying story failed to engage me. This is a slow and methodical film with a fair quantity of plot, but the mix of politics, extra-marital affairs, spousal abuse and photography just didn't gel together from where I was sitting. Sad to say, I found it remarkably dull, with little to commend it bar the technical. Acted competently and paced to avoid any dragging while getting things done in its own time, it is difficult to criticise anything specific about the film. Indeed, I'm not sure there is anything specifically wrong with it, and so I'm at a loss as to why I didn't find more things to like in it.

Nevertheless, while appreciating the craft of those making the film, the film itself did nothing at all for me, and indeed I can't think of much to say about it at all. Probably that's my fault, but I can't justify giving it more than 5 out of 10.

A teen/cheerleading movie that tries to be amusing and also - possibly, at least - have somewhat of a message, Fired Up neverthless isn't all that good at all, despite the implicit promise of large numbers of nubile young ladies. The humour is uncomfortably somewhere between raunch and family-safe, the situations silly, the characters boring cyphers, the story highly predictable, and there isn't even any decent cheerleading in it. In addition, this takes the general trope of 'high-schoolers' being played by people much older to an extreme - most of the people in this cast are of a comparable age to me, and I'm on the far side of 30 - and this is rather more noticeable than usual. A great deal of the humour falls flat, which is rather a shame as this scenario (boys at an almost-all-girl cheerleading camp) should be a decent opportunity for lots of fun scenarios, though it seems no-one managed to persuade the screenwriters of that.

Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen are almost interchangable, highly unlikeable and far too old for the parts they're playing. At the very least, you've got to like your leading characters in this sort of comedy, even if they are rogues. The timing isn't there and the amusement factor is kept to a minimum. Sarah Roemer is ok but doesn't get a chance to do much. Molly Sims isn't much older than the rest of the cast, however much she is supposed to be, but isn't much use anyway. David Walton plays a tedious character in a tedious way. Adhir Kalyan plays an annoying character in a deeply annoying way. Philip Baker Hall has a vaguely amusing role but quickly disappears from the film.

At one point the characters watch Bring It On - and while it is amusing watching characters in a movie wanting to be characters from another movie, it does bring to mind the MST3K advice I've quoted before - 'never show a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie!'. And this is, in the end, a rather crappy movie. Given it is a movie about a vast quantity of female cheerleaders, it doesn't even manage to be titillating - partly as it is inexplicably trying for a family-friendly rating. Sporadically amusing, but mostly very disappointing. 3.5 out of 10.