Up And Down

Rating: Null/10 (7 July 2004)

As 'Dodgeball' opens we pan around the crummy living room of Vince Vaughn and find him snoozing on the couch as a TV infomercial (with the usual pitchman hyping exercise stuff) drones on in the background. He rises and in leisurely fashion begins his day, and like many of us, never seems to move any faster than at about sixty percent of his potential  for the rest of the movie. But this is perfect counterpoint to Ben Stiller's energetic creep-role, as we soon see.
Vaughn (Peter La Fluer) is owner of a less-then- state of the art ('Average Joe's') gym coveted (as a parking solution) by the owner of neighboring and rival GloboGym (Ben Stiller as White Goodman). We soon find that Average Joe's is in deep financial straits, and it follows, as in nearly all sports movies, that winning a prize is the only possible solution to this dilemma. Of course the team Vaughn assembles for the big Las Vegas Dodgeball Tournament is predictably a ragtag collection of social misfits; rival Ben Stiller in response fields a team of ringers to circumvent the success of Average Joe's.
While there are no real surprises in the outcome of the movie, the gags and one-liners we see and hear along the way make this a nice ride. Surprisingly there are a few references to homosexuality (generally movies either steer directly away from or head-on into this theme), and with the other blatant sexual innuendo peppered throughout 'Dodgeball' is a little edgier than the PG-13 rating indicates.
The only portion of 'Dodgeball' that is really striking is the introduction of the Las Vegas Tournament and the subsequent few minutes as we see teams (all the sides  and we remember dodgeball as a junior high rainy-day thing where we lined up on each side of the gym and pummeled each other - have themes) eliminated in rapid fashion. This is truly funny stuff, and a definite shift up in the imagination gears occurs. The film then downshifts to the previous rather leisurely pace at which it had been moving.
Vaughn is really the key actor in 'Dodgeball', although Stiller does give a fine effort as the revolting GloboGym owner. The work of the supporting cast (most notably Rip Torn, who in his career has done anything given the opportunity) does add to the overall number of laughs. Judging by the audience reaction (a nice mixed bag of kids, teens and older adults) 'Dodgeball' is about as funny as 'The Bad News Bears', which is not a bad thing.
Rating: 3 Stars.