Dodgeball: A Truly Nauseating Story

Rating: 1/10 (23 January 2005)

Most films, even the most worthless ones, have something about them which is meritorious. O Brother, Where Art Thou? had a decent soundtrack. Walking Tall had a good moral. Elf had some cute moments. No viewer should see any of these movies immediately before or after eating. Dodgeball, however, is one of those thankful rarities which should not be seen if the viewer is ever planning to eat again.
The plot deals with an apathetic local fitness center owner (Vince Vaughn) who is trying to save his cute little neighborhood gym from a major corporate takeover masterminded by an evil fitness guru (Ben Stiller) with an inflated ego and some other inflated things as well, if you get my drift. In order to raise the money he needs to pay off his debts and save his gym, Vaughn's character Peter LaFleur puts together a ragtag dodgeball team and enters it in a Las Vegas competition. Only problem is, Stiller & Co. have also entered a team. The Average Joe team includes a group of characters that I believe I was supposed to like: a sweet-faced lawyer who turns out to be an Amazon (Christine Taylor), a disillusioned male cheerleader (Justin Long), a man who thinks he is a pirate (Alan Tudyk), a pansy with bottled-up anger (Stephen Root), the Napoleon Dynamite style team manager (Joel David Moore), and another guy (Chris Williams) whom I don't remember anything about, even though I just saw the movie.
Of course, no movie is devoid of the occasional shining moment. Rip Torn's former-dodgeball-champion-turned-coach was a likable fellow. I smiled a few times, and even had one or two weak chuckles. The presence of Lance Armstrong and Chuck Norris made me raise my eyebrows, but I had no issue with it. Any of this, however, was canceled out by the horror that was in store in the last ten minutes of the movie.
A good ending can save an otherwise mediocre movie (a la Unbreakable or Queen of the Damned). A bad ending sticks in the viewer's memory like a butcher knife. ***SPOILER ALERT*** This was a bad ending. It began when Christine Taylor's character is revealed, for no reason whatsoever, to be a bisexual. It ended with our ten-second view of Ben Stiller's now-washed-up White Goodman, who now weighs about 925 pounds and has lost everything. I nearly threw up everything I had eaten that day when this image came on the screen. It reeked of pure antihumor - it was something one has to see to believe, and I hope for your sake that you never see it.
In past movies I have been very impressed with performances by Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughan - they are talented actors. I suppose there was only so much they could do with this miserable screenplay, and frankly I'm shocked they accepted the roles. As for Armstrong and Norris, I usually expect better from them. I can only wonder what they saw in it that possessed them to agree to appear in this disgusting excuse for entertainment. Grade: F.