Oddly Uneven

Rating: 5/10 (10 April 2005)

Dude this movie was HILARIOUS!!! its about this dude, and he couldn't find his car.
"Dodgeball is a sport of violence, exclusion, and degradation". I can personally relate to this movie. Growing up in the midwest we were forced to play it often, as early as age six. Hopefully its involuntary school version is just a Midwestern thing (Ohio, Michigan, Illinois) because it is truly a sport of "violence, exclusion, and degradation"; which I can now look back on and laugh about (at least a little).
I think Stiller got the concept from his Michigan friends who made it a great sequence in the "Freaks and Geeks" pilot episode.
But it would be hard to come up with another movie that is as uneven (hit and miss) in its humor.
Pretty much everything involving Patches works extremely well; and works for both the Hank Azaria and the Rip Torn versions of the character. In fact these are some of the greatest comedy and dialogue bits ever. "No, but I do it anyway because it's sterile and I like the taste".
There are also a lot of funny animations and graphics, some great stuff that comes totally out-of-the-blue; like "thank you Chuck Norris" said with sincerity and the Lance Armstrong bit at the casino bar.
The good stuff is almost entirely at the middle of the film. There is absolutely nothing in the first 20 minutes of interest but stay with it because it gets better. Likewise the last 20 minutes is a letdown although the tournament announcers/commentators (Jason Bateman and Gary Cole) do a pretty good parody of too slick sports broadcasting. And it was a nice touch to have David Hasselhoff as the abusive German coach.
They reach for some cheap lesbian laughs which culminates with the tired draw of girls kissing.
Vince Vaughn is likable and relaxed but it would be a stretch to call his stuff 'acting'.
Ben Stiller is the main source of the misses. His 70's fitness freak never really works and the more you see the less funny it gets. Only the scenes with his "real-life wife" Christine Taylor are worth watching. Stiller just doesn't have the talent for exaggerated humor and the writer gave all the good lines to the other characters.
The supporting cast that I have not yet mentioned are lame and unimaginative. Since it is a comedy I assume that "Steve the Pirate" is supposed to be funny but you can't tell that by how he looks or what he says. Julie Gonzalo plays her same cheerleader character from "A Cinderella Story"; since the films were produced at the same time she may have just walked back and forth between the sets without having to do a costume change.
The big mystery is why the creative talent behind "Dodgeball produced so much great stuff and then did nothing worthwhile with the rest of the movie.