Anyone who has ever flipped to ESPN2 and discovered the Logrollympics, followed by the Precision Typing Cup, should get a charge out of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
A spoof of bogus sporting events and of ragtag-team-of-lovable-losers sports movies, it's The Bad Knees Bears, with a team of out-of-shape adults, led by Vince Vaughn, competing against a team of evil mesomorphs, led by Ben Stiller, in the national dodgeball championships (sponsored by the ADAA, the American Dodgeball Association of America). With its hilarious performances and gut-busting (literally) sight gags, it's going to be huge.
About half the jokes involve somebody getting hit in the face or crotch. They're cheap jokes, but darned if they aren't funny every time, largely because they occur when Vaughn's ragtag team is under the tutelage of a dodgeball legend in a gym festooned with signs like, "Failure is an option. It lets us learn from our mistakes." Played by Rip Torn, the coach's Vince Lombardisms include, "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball," and "If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball."
As Vaughn's team works its way to the title, Dodgeball both parodies the clichés of Bad News Bears-type movies -- like intra-team romances, slo-mo climaxes and an obscure rule that, once it's mentioned, you know will be a deciding factor -- and makes bank on them.
Vaughn and Stiller, wearing -- I swear -- the wig Jane Fonda wore in 9 to 5 ("Feathered and lethal! You just don't see that nowadays," raves a sports announcer), are terrific. So are Jason Bateman as an X-treme sports X-pert who's X-tremely stoned, and Gary Cole, as his unlucky ESPN8 cohort.
Written and directed by newcomer Rawson Marshall Thurber, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is truly a team effort, and it's a winning one.
****
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Rip Torn, Jason Bateman, Gary Cole.
Rated: PG-13, contains profanity.
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