"Grab life by the ball."

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004): 7/10

Poster (c) 20th Century Fox

There's nothing greater in comedies than people being hit in the groin. Expand that into 90 minutes and you've got the basic plot of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. No, strike that. It's 90 minutes of groin hits, Ben Stiller being stupid (it's what he does best), and wrench throwing. But in silly, uncomplicated comedies like this, anything slapstick works, and most of the movie does. Sure, it's no slapstick classic, but from a rookie writer/director (Rawson Marshall Thurber, who also did the successful "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" ad during the Super Bowl), it's far from bad.

Peter (Vince Vaughn) owns "Average Joe's" gym, a rundown shack of a place which is unfortunate enough to be next to corporate Globo Gym, run by White Goodman (Ben Stiller). Average Joe's is in danger of closing unless it gets $50,000. The ragtag gym regulars decide to start a dodgeball team and go to Vegas for a dodgeball tournament, where the winners get (surprise, surprise) $50,000. But White makes his own team as they go head-to-head. Kate (Christine Taylor, Stiller's real life wife) is thrown into the mix and eventually joins the Average Joe's.

Unlike most movies now, most of Dodgeball's jokes were not in the trailers. The funniest character has to be Patches (Rip Torn) as a paraplegic former Dodgeball champion who trains the Average Joes. Every line he says is insulting and derogatory, but he's really very funny. Second is Steve the Pirate (Alan Tudyk), a guy on the team who, well, thinks he's a pirate. That's about all I'll spoil, because most of it is new and clever. Sure, like all comedies, it drags towards the end (and becomes drawn out and dramatic), but in general, the second half had more laughs than the first. Most of them were either from Stiller (his best role since...uh...Starsky and Hutch?) or being hit by balls. Sure, it got old, and the sound effect they always used was annoying, but it was still quite funny.

Thurber seems to know how to balance the characters (such as which characters are the most important so those characters get development), and it really shows. It's hard to really explain, but you'll see if you go to the movie. Yet he can't keep away from the typical romance. Kate and White/Peter have such throwaway romances that they aren't even worth talking about. In fact, this whole movie is a throwaway movie. It's very funny, but you probably won't remember that you even saw it soon after. Except for Stiller's "Joanie loves Chachi!" It's seen in the trailers and it's probably the funniest line in the movie due to the context. Overall, Dodgeball is not a memorable movie, but quite a funny one, and it's worth seeing.

Rated PG-13 for rude and sexual humor, and language.

Review Date: June 18, 2004