Funny, but not awe-inspiring.

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 2005)

Sports movies are always the same. So much so that they are basically the same movie watched over and over again. Underdog team needs to beat the big guys so they can save the bar/house/club etc. Dodgeball is referred to as A True Underdog Story. And so it is. It is a clichéd, over-the-top, exaggerated version of the same sporting movies that have been made every year for the past half-century. Peter Le Fleur (Vince Vaughn) and his regulars at his gym, Average Joe's take on the professional, elite team of rival White Goodman and his own gym in the standard sporting movie plot. However, the game they choose to play is dodgeball, perennial favourite of American PE teachers and my PE teacher in High School. The object of the game at the school level is for big, sporty kids to pelt unpopular geeks like myself with balls over and over again. The professional dodgeball circuit portrayed in the film is sleek, sophisticated and apparently quite popular. Of course, it's all a big joke. Peter's team are the usual bunch of misfits. There's the geeky former cheerleader Justin, sad, mild Gordon and The Dread Pirate Steve. He is joined by Kate Veatch, the banker hired by Goodman to acquire Peter's gym. They are all coached by former Dodgeball champion Patches O'Houlihan, now a wheelchair bound, sex-obsessed loony who trains them by throwing spanners at them. The movie is very silly, but it's still amusing. There are a number of good sight gags of the slapstick variety, and there are some good one-liners, particularly from Stiller and Vaughn. Stiller plays the bad guy in this film, but it's a similar character to that from Zoolander; dumb, shallow and self-centred. Stiller plays the egomaniac so well I can't help but wonder if there's an element of reality in his portrayal. The movie is filled with odd characters who do and say odd things, which is OK because I respond well to that kind of humour. Dodgeball is not a great film. It's possibly not even a good film. But it is an amusing film. That's really all one can ask from a comedy. Anti-sport movies are becoming more common these days; the Australian film Crackerjack springs to mind, which is basically the same old story but concerning lawn bowls. Dodgeball works as a satire, or a spoof, of these movies but mostly it works as a way of raising a smile, even if the jokes are dumb and the plot non-existent. Enjoy it; genuinely funny films are rare. Good-o-meter rating: 7/10