It's Exactly What You Expect. Go To Be Entertained.

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2004)

"Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" was fairly entertaining. Essentially, that's my review, however, that may lead some people to believe that this is actually a good movie. It's not. Judged in the sense of cinema, this is a horrible movie. The screenplay is absolutely atrocious, most of the jokes are unfunny and rehashed bits (Did anyone see "Baseketball"??? Same thing, but way better), bad acting, the whole nine. It's just a bad film. Plain and simple. But NOBODY went into the theater expecting to see "Citizen Kane"! The thought of that is absolutely absurd. We came for cheap and stupid humor. Ben Stiller reprises his role of the nutty camp counselor from the 1995 gem "Heavyweights" and gets his totally smokin' hot wife Christine Taylor to play the token hottie that these movies typically have. Vince "You used to be so money and you didn't even know it" Vaughn's acting is noticeably terrible in this and I'm just thinking "What happened? You were so awesome in 'Swingers." But that doesn't matter because it's still funny, even though he's playing the straight man (to Ben Stiller's cheap penis pump/pizza masturbation jokes.) But who cares! That's entertainment!
The best part of this movie is, without a doubt (Much like in "Best in Show") the dodgeball tournament announcers, played by Harvey Birdman himself, Gary Cole and...well, the other guy's name is Pepper, and that is totally awesome. Their lines are the funniest, even though the whole bit is the same thing bit that was in "Pootie Tang" where one character makes a long, drawn out explanation of something and the other character says the exact same thing in two words.
There is one huge problem that is haunting this movie. That problem is the COMPLETE LACK OF DODGEBALL ACTION!!! I mean, our underdog team, the Average Joes play six games of dodgeball in the entire movie. Do we see any long, dramatic games of dodgeball? NO! It's like a highlights reel and totally weak. Gah, now I'm really starting to hate this movie, and thinking about it, if I was watching this alone and not with a big group, I'd have hated it to death. It's an awful film...but if you see it with a bunch of people that think it's funny, some of that entertainment will rub off onto you. Enjoy or suffer.