Hit-and-miss, but basically a good time (**1/2)

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2004)

Is this movie stupid? Yes. Are there tons of jokes and lines that fall flat? Yes. But is it painful? No. And is it pretty damn funny in places and does it have lots of fun characters? Definitely.
The title pretty much says it all here. It's about dodgeball, and in the great tradition of sports comedies like "Caddyshack", it's also a class struggle, about the underdogs vs. the rich ***holes.
I thought I was getting tired of Ben Stiller, but he's great here as playing a send-up of the typical villain in those types of movies. It's a lot of fun to watch him with puffed-up blondish hair, a Leather-Man-from-the-Village-People mustache, and an affected "tough" speaking tone play the kind of idiotic bad guy we all love to hate.
"Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" isn't a great movie, or anything even approaching that, but it does work more than you expect it to, and it's more or less worth plunking down the change.