Boogers, Farts, and minimal laughs

Rating: 2/10 (30 May 2006)

My wife and I wanted to go see X-Men 3, the kids wanted "Benchwarmers". The kids won out and the whole family lost on this one. I like Rob Schneider, Jon Lovitz, and the rest of the cast, and admittedly laughed out loud early on, encouraged by how the movie started out. But cliché' after cliché' set in, mired down in unfunny slapstick, until even my 13 year old son said it was lame.
The whole premise is weak to begin with, and at one point I turned to my wife and said "This is just Dodgeball all over again." The big difference? "Dodgeball" was at least mostly entertaining. "Benchwarmers" has a heartless, mindless script, despite appearing to be full of heart for the nerds, geeks and losers of the world, but it's painfully evident it's merely empty words on the screen. Rob Schneider's "big revelation" is no big revelation at all, and the characters are all, for the most part, bad caricatures.
Scene after scene after scene has you groaning over how predictable, unrealistic, and just-not-funny they are. Sorry Hollywood, but grown guys driving down the street hitting mailboxes with a baseball just isn't very funny. Nor is the tired, old wisecracking robot (poorly done at that).
As the movie thankfully neared the end, my wife leaned over and said "I just want this to END!" I was in total agreement and could not even recommend this one as a rental.