Dodgeball - A True Underdog Story DVD

Advantages: Comic scriptwriting at its silliest and finest! Stiller is funnier than ever before.
Disadvantages: Plot as watertight as a sieve and character depth to match. A one man show.

...urine drinking (?!), one time dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn)- and before we know it we're off on a hilarious adventure of miniature and scantily believable proportions. "So what the hell is dodgeball anyway?" (I hear my fellow Europeans cry) *** "Dodgeball is a sport of violence, exclusion, and degradation." Patches O'Houlihan *** Well, at least that cleared up some confusion. Being British I had no idea what dodgeball was all about ...
...Cobras' in the most dramatic Dodgeball final since the Helsinki final of 1919, and as commentator Cotton McKnight points out "I think we all remember how THAT turned out!" Indeed. Will the Average Joes underdogs defeat the muscle clad cranially diminished hulks, ('Blade, Laser and Blazer') of the Purple Cobras? Will White Goodman's team destroy their opponents and then their gym to make way for a parking lot, will Pete get the girl, will the effeminate ... Read review

Advantages: If I'm going to hell I'm well prepared - Strengthens case for legal Euthanasia
Disadvantages: Patently and unashamedly obvious

...me, I knew exactly where Dodgeball was going. One of these misfits, inexplicably, propelled himself on-screen dressed as a pirate, and proceeded to pipe up with a number of seafaring clichés. Why? I have no idea, ‘me hearty’. All was not lost though - The Blazin’ Squad impersonators sitting behind us loved this guy. A moment of light relief presented itself, however, when Kate (Stillers’ impossibly pretty off-screen partner Christine Taylor) appears ...
...how they would tack the Dodgeball connection onto the side of these already creaking, balsa wood foundations. Guess what? Post Car-Wash, back at Joe’s, the downbeat posse stumbled across an ad in a magazine. A Dodgeball competition in Vegas! The prize? $50,000! Only waking up to find it was all a dream could have been more fittingly crap. From here on, things actually manage to get worse, in a comedic sense at least. The crew inevitably decide to ... Read review

Advantages: None - very disappointing
Disadvantages: I bought the thing

...underdogs decide to enter the dodgeball tournament. I can tell you are gripped, but just hang on.. .. theres a twist. Goodman's outfit has a crack dodgeball team that wants to win the tournament too! Not only that but he wants La Fleur's gymn, so the two strike a side bet. Its edge of the seat stuff but wait there's yet more. Apart from the businesses at stake, there is the highly original sub plot of the two men competing for the heart of the luscious ...
...great characters and genuine laughs. Dodgeball take a swipe at many a sporting movie, the problem is that the intended objects of derision are generally far superior to the film that mocks them. Writer and Director Thurber litters his film with stereotypes and while (I hope) this is obviously a ploy to satirise other flicks, the upshot is that these characters are just plain dull. There really is very little skill in mocking the archetypal misfit ... Read review

Advantages: Brilliant humour, great cast, light-hearted and entertaining
Disadvantages: A few gaps in the script, but nothing major

...they could enter the national Dodgeball championship tournament, where the first prize is - amazingly - fifty thousand dollars. Cue some rather amusing attempts to practice at this somewhat violent game and a slightly bizarre - not to mention lucky - drugs failure by one of their early competitors in the regional championships, and Average Joe's suddenly find themselves in the National Dodgeball tournament and on their way to winning. They can't ...
...to be a surprisingly competent Dodgeball player and, as well as being attractive, turns out to be bisexual too, spoiling a bet between La Fleur and other team players. The ultimate star of the film, however, has to be Patches O'Houlihan. Played by Rip Torn, Patches is a former major-league Dodgeball player, now confined to a wheelchair. As well as being the only guy who can get Average Joe's through to the final, he's also the one guy in the film ... Read review

Advantages: Endlessly quotable, great if you have a nasty sense of humour...
Disadvantages: awful if you don't. No plot, no character development

...hope is a Las Vegas Dodgeball tournament. But with his team of misfits, he doesn’t seem to have a hope of winning… So what is dodgeball? Essentially it is an evil pseudo-sport that American teenagers are forced to play in PE. It involves throwing football-sized rubber balls at the opposing team’s heads and bodies, knocking them out of the game or their senses. It proves that gym teachers really hate their students and that Americans will call anything ...
...you’ll wet yourself watching this. Dodgeball itself is a pointless sport that glories in the pain of its participants and Thurber plays it up, with dozens of shots of people being hit extremely hard in the face and crotch. Of the rest of the film, one third is pitch perfect character comedy from the likes of Ben Stiller and Rip Torn and the remaining third is a series of well-timed gags, most of which are very un-PC. Targets include gym fanatics, ... Read review