Product: Dodgeball/Borat Bonus Preview Disc (2004)
Rating: 5.0
Thwack!! Kersplat!! Why is Pain So Darn Funny?
This movie is impossible to watch with a straight face and without flinching. A true comedy in every sense of the word it will have you rolling in laughter and remembering your own experiences with the dreaded dodgeball.In a world of infomercials and faultless people resides the perfect man, White Goodman (Ben Stiller). Goodman owns and controls a state of the art health club and spends his life combing his feathered hair, pumping up and electrocuting himself over donut and pizza cravings. With a personality as shallow as his appearance he is a true specimen of gag reflex in motion! Across the street is a run down gym for "Average Joes" run by a hapless man of little ambition, Pete La Fleur (Vince Vaughn). Goodman and La Fleur soon begin a power struggle over ownership of his little gym and the games begin. SMACK! SPLAT! In order to come up with $50K to save the average joes from being eaten alive by White's arrogant conglomeration La Fleur and his gang of misfit members join a dodgeball tournament. With all seriousness the nerds begin to work out with a legend in the sport and after getting hit by iron wrenches and plenty of balls they end up in Las Vegas for the championship. Needless to say Mr. White and his robotic over-steroided team are also willing to be turned into pulp by a bunch of flying balls...Ouch!!Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are incredible in their roles as very serious gym owners and it is absolutely impossible not to laugh while watching this film. Christine Taylor (Stiller's real life wife) does an excellent job as the girl both over jockulated men eventually vie for. Rip Torn is hilarious as the urine drinking dodgeball legend who eventually coaches greatness from his wheelchair. The gags and stabs at seekers of perfection are downright on the money with plenty of pumped up pecs and abs to fill an egotists dream. The average joes are all absolutely side-splitting with their uncoordinated efforts and messed up lives. The tournament is filled with subtle innuendos directed at everything funny about Japanese, German, Eastern European and Red Neck American athletes as well as that ever present superior being the Bodybuilder! Cameo appearances by Hank Azaria, Chuck Norris, Lance Armstrong, William Shatner and David Hasselhoff offer a few short moments of additional laughs. But the real hero of this film is the dodgeball itself, that red ball that has instilled so much fear in anyone who has ever faced it while hugging onto a wall cringing. I still can't figure out why watching people get hurt in innocent ways is so funny but I dare you to dodge the giggles that come from watching this movie each and every time someone gets smashed by a flying dodgeball!P.S.....Make sure you watch the credits for additional chuckles by Ben Stiller!!