Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Take it from someone who can still feel the hollow rubber tang! of old dodgeball scars: It feels great to be blindsided by a little movie like this.

Ben Stiller is like a guy on the 1919 White Sox. He's rigged to lose. His comedy is the stuff of failure, and sometimes it's pleasurable watching him flit around in funny get-ups, only to have a pretty costar put him down.

Writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber (the short "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker") keeps the jokes coming fast and furious, and while none of them are deep, many find their mark.

Mostly, Dodgeball just feels off--never consistently funny, but also never dire. It's as if Thurber resigned himself to making a dumb, formula-bound movie with a dusting of smart gags instead of a smart movie in dumb-movie clothes.

Much of Dodgeball feels competent but lazy. The nerds are barely distinguishable, except for one who thinks he's a pirate and says arghh a lot to no humorous effect.

For a while, Vaughn's slobbo guy charm and Stiller's creepy Flash Gordon aesthetic are amusing, but it isn't long before Vaughn looks like a Bill Murray disciple trapped among circus freaks, and Stiller runs out of weirdo tricks.

Mean-spirited vulgarity and homosexual panic.

'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story' is a movie that made me laugh hysterically with its slapstick, sometimes crude and strange out-of-this-world humor. It's a movie that filled me with a lot of positive feelings and a comedy that I strongly recommend. White Goodman (Ben Stiller) is an egotistical gym owner, he owns and runs a successful gymnasium called "Globo Gym" which is where business is going pretty good thanks to its high quality machinery and facilities. Over on the other side lies "Average Joe's" Gymnasium, owned by Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn), and is more of a run-down gym and only has few members. When Peter meets Katie Veach (Christine Taylor) and she tells him that all his bills are overdue, he then finds out that White of Globo Gym wants to buy Average Joe's leaving him in a difficult financial situation. Peter, along with his crew including; Justin (Justin Long), Gordon (Stephen Root), Steve (Alan Tudyk), Owen (Joel Moore) and Dwight (Chris Williams) must find different ways to make money in order to keep the gym. They then hear about a Dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas where there is a cash prize that they can use to keep the gym and not let White get anywhere near it. When it seems that they are not able to get the gym and their Dodgeball skills are not quite up to standards, Peter then bumps into Dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn) and he teaches them, in a series of funny methods, how to play professional Dodgeball and win the Las Vegas tournament. This is a very fast-paced and wacky comedy, Ben Stiller is great at playing the annoying, egotistical and sometimes elaborate White Goodman. All of the comedy is also perfectly timed to know when it's the right time to be funny. The physical humor including seeing a number of men getting hit by Dodgeballs never gets tiring. To put it short, 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story' is worth your time.

A predictable plot, but a star-studded cast with writers that never fail to make you laugh. An easy and funny watch!

Really good comedy, but not good at a lot of other stuff. It’s okay but not great.

The Underdogs grab life by the balls. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is an extremely idiotic, overdone, but yet miraculously hilarious story. The actors save the scripts nutty hijinks from being a complete train wreck by selling what their given.

This movie reactivated my childhood trauma of getting picked last in PE and getting slammed by a dodgeball. TRAUMATIC MOVIE.