Thursday, March 20, 2008

Dodgeball (Movie Review)

I watched a chunk of Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story (2004) a few years ago when it was first released on DVD, but only just recently had a chance to revisit it in all its ridiculous glory.

And it is, indeed, ridiculous.

Starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn as owners of competing gyms (the former a huge success; the latter on the verge of collapse). Vaughn's character has just 30 days to come up with $50,000 or else his gym will fall into the hands of his archenemy — the obnoxiously cocky jock played by Stiller.

Vaughn's cronies recommend they enter a national dodge ball tournament where the top prize is — you guessed it — $50,000, despite the fact that they've never played and don't really have much time to train.

From there, hilarity — yes, I said it... hilarity — ensues in what is actually a fairly clever screwball comedy. Not "genius," per se... but clever. And above all other things: a welcome distraction.

Which reminds me: I'm on a quest to find more decent comedies. Dark comedies are preferred, but I also enjoy straight up comedies that are well-written and appropriately produced... a la Dodgeball and Anchorman. Feel free to leave recommendations in the comments section — or befriend me on Netflix.

FINAL GRADE: B

6 comments:

Unacademic Advisor said...

Forget the movies, T, and come to CA... or... howsabout we hit up the ole AT like Katz and Bryson? We'll decide later which one of us is which. :)

Alijah Fitt said...

Now that you know how I feel about The Jerk, how about Clay Pigeons? Have you seen it? Dark, funny, well done. (if you have time, check out the reference to the documentary on my post today, not dark, not funny, but very interesting and personal to me and don't know how i missed it for so long. Any idea how to get a look at it?)

thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

Un Ad - You're on. I would like to begin planning my trip soon, actually. I know I missed the best time to visit CA, but in lieu of waiting until next winter, when's the second best time to visit? And I'm up for the AT, as you know. Though I think we'd both be Brysons.

Stacy - Thanks for the recommendation. I just added it to my Netflix queue.

M@ said...

Leave it to you... I want to see Stiller's new Vietnam movie. :)

Unacademic Advisor said...

While it's true that much of Bryson's background and personality hits home with me, I think it could be fun being Katz for a bit... I've always wanted to just fling things off the side of a cliff. Ya know what I mean?

Mel O said...

Have you ever seen 'True Romance?' It's not so much labeled a comedy but anyone I have ever watched it with finds much of it funny-if only because the scene is so absurd.

It's a Tarantino flick, so don't let the title fool you... Everybody and their brother is in it. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the main characters but Michael Rapaport and Bronson Pinchot are hilarious! Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper have an A-MA-ZING scence together that is by far one of my favorite scenes of all time. Brad Pitt plays a hilarious stoner and you'll recognize Samuel L Jackson and James Gandolfini too, but you won't believe that Val Kilmer AND Gary Oldman are even in it(nearly unrecognizable)! It is a must see...

(and if you already have, I'm sorry for rambling-obviously I'm passionate about this movie. ha!)