Harmless comedy is just too predictable

Rating: 4/10 (12 February 2005)

I'm not trying to convince anyone who saw this that they viewed a bad film because nothing is more subjective than comedy and I do believe that there are some solid laughs found here but many of the subplots in this story are just so obvious and predictable. Story is about Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) who manages a small and rundown gym called "Average Joe's" but with his pathetic group of members he doesn't make much money and now the bank needs $50,000 or they're going to take it away from him.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** White Goodman (Ben Stiller) runs a very successful gym also and he won't stop at anything to get his hands on Peter's and he even agree's to give him more than $50,000 but that doesn't convince Peter to sell. Peter is convinced by his members that they should join the Dodgeball League and try and win the championship prize in Las Vegas but what finally spurns him on to the idea is the help from Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn) who is a dodgeball teacher and Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor) who works for the bank.
This film is directed by newcomer Rawson Marshall Thurber who benefits from the opportunity to work with a cast that has been in several goofy comedies reminiscent of this and they together make this film work on several levels. The story is slapstick with so many jokes and humorous situations tossed in that you can make a case that it resembles the "Airplane" films but the main problem I had with this is the predictability of most of the situations and it's characters. Was is really surprising to see the one nerdy character who wanted to be a cheerleader end up with the hot chick from his school? Did anyone believe Taylor's character would be attracted to Vaughn and that she would even get involved with dodgeball? Sure, I'm nit-picking but these were such glaring aspects of the story that it's shocking to me that the makers of this film don't realize how cheesy they are and just change it. If you love Stiller and his over the top comedies than you'll no doubt enjoy this effort but for me I found too many parts of the film cartoonish to allow myself to admit this as a guilty pleasure.