A silly, juvenile, but funny sports comedy

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2009)

Since this David Zucker comedy is rated R, I would have been too young for it back when it was released in 1998. I was around twelve years old at the time. The first time I saw "BASEketball" was in 2005. At the time, I was just getting into "South Park", and I knew that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of that long-running adult cartoon series, starred in this sports film. Seeing it for the first time, I really liked it a lot, despite how polarizing it is. Nearly four years later, I've finally seen it again, and this time, I certainly didn't find it as entertaining as I once did. I used to think it was an excellent comedy, but now I still think it's a reasonable one. It still made me laugh the second time, so I still have to give it some credit.
Joe "Coop" Cooper and Doug Remer are two idiots from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who have been friends since childhood. While competing with two basketball experts, they change the rules to try and win, which leads to the invention of a new sport, BASEketball! This eventually becomes a popular driveway sport, and catches to attention of Ted Denslow, who approaches Coop and Remer, suggesting the creation of a National BASEketball League (NBL). Five years later, this league has become a huge success, with teams all over the country. Coop and Remer play for the Milwaukee Beers, owned by Denslow himself. During the BASEketball championship, the Denslow Cup, Ted Denslow chokes on a hot dog, which unfortunately kills him. His will says that Coop will be the new owner of the team if he wins the next season, or else it will go to his widow, Yvette. Baxter Cain, the owner of the Dallas Felons, wants to make significant changes in the rules of the game, but the Milwaukee Beers are the only ones stopping him, so has a scheme to try and prevent the team from winning!
This is a silly, juvenile, crude film, like many other modern comedies, not that I have a problem with that (as long as it's funny), but some people obviously do. Unlike some of these films (e.g. "Dude, Where's My Car?"), I think this one is actually funny overall. During my second viewing, I found that in some parts, they might go just a little too far with the juvenile humour or overdo the slapstick. For a while, it wasn't making me laugh very hard, but that eventually changed. There were still several comic highlights for me, including a number of the scenes involving teammate Squeak Scolari (played by Dian Bachar, who has collaborated with Parker and Stone on several other projects) taking abuse from Coop and Remer, some of the psych-outs during the games, team members trying to treat a kid in the hospital, and the song Coop hears in the car when things have gone wrong for him. For a rather simple sports comedy, the plot isn't bad, either. There may be some fairly poignant moments.
In the 2004 "South Park" episode, "The Passion of the Jew", when Stan and Kenny want their money back after they see "The Passion of the Christ", Stan says that it's just like the time they got their money back for "BASEketball". In an interview in 2005, Trey Parker said one of the two meanest things people say to the controversial comedy duo is, "Oh my G*d, it's those guys from BASEketball." I don't know if the two SP creators hate this film and now regret ever doing it, or they just don't like being known just as the guys from this movie (that would definitely be understandable, since they just starred in this film, and were not involved in the writing, directing, or producing, so it certainly doesn't show the full extent of their abilities), but whatever the reason is for their comments on this 1998 comedy years after it was made, it can still make me laugh. Is it David Zucker's best work? No. Is it Trey Parker and Matt Stone's best work? No. Is it an atrocious film that should be avoided at all costs? Well, some people would obviously think so, but not me. While it's no masterpiece, it can still make many people laugh (mostly guys, I think). I still think it's superior to "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story", just not as far superior as I used to think it was.