Product: Dodgeball/Borat Bonus Preview Disc (2004)
Rating: 3.0
Promising and Funny, But Crude or Before Judd Apatow
DODGEBALL is one of those movies that you read the back of the video box or DVD case and think, "This sounds pretty good. It sounds like it has a decent plot, it's a comedy, and it's got Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn so it has to be fairly good." Then you get home and watch the movie and can't believe how terrible it is. That's how I felt about DODGEBALL.The set up of the movie is promising. Average Joes, a small time gym, has their mortgage purchased by Global Gym. The guy in charge of Global Gym hates the guy in charge of Average Joes. He thinks Average Joes is competing for his business and wants to turn Average Joes into a parking garage. The guys at Average Joes have to come up with $50,000 or their place is gone. That's where the dodgeball comes into play. The World Dodgeball Championships are being held in a few weeks in Las Vegas and the prize for the winning team is $50,000. But things go horribly wrong.There are a lot of funny lines in DODGEBALL. Ben Stiller is hilarious for most of the movie (basically reprising his role of Tony Serkis from HEAVYWEIGHTS but for an adult audience), Vince Vaughn is witty as ever, Rip Torn is a riot as the team's personal trainer who comes out of retirement, and the movie has Lance Armstrong in one of the best movie cameos of the early 2000s.But there's a hitch. Instead of going the high road of comedy DODGEBALL plays to the lowest common denominator and the movie drastically suffers. Foul language, crude jokes, every other sentence is filled with sexual innuendo. There's one scene where a group of young women are washing cars with their cleavage and there's another scene where Stiller's character uses a slice of pizza as Gold Bond. The movie promises to be hilarious, but it turns out to be a cruel, crude joke.If you like the types of comedies that Judd Apatow directs and writes or are a fan of THE HANGOVER, then you'll probably enjoy DODGEBALL. Personally, I like my comedies a little less crude. As for the movie being "A True Underdog Story", that's just part of the gimmick. If you want to watch a real underdog story watch RUDY or MIRACLE.