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Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

DVD Cover (Twentieth Century Fox Unrated)
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Overall Rating 65%
Overall Rating
Ranked #704
...out of 20,203 movies
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White Goodman is the owner and founder of Globo Gym, and would love nothing more than owning Average Joe's Gymnasium. Peter LaFleur doesn't want to lose his gym to Goodman, but can't find a way to get $50,000 in time. Peter and his gang of gym buddies think of ways to raise money, finally settling on winning a dodge ball tournament. White Goodman retaliates by creating his own dodge ball team to finish off Peter. Peter's team doesn't do too well, until legendary ADAA champ Patches O'Houlihan turns up ready to train them. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: July 18, 2004
Peter LaFleur owns and operates Average Joe's Gym, which is a pretty run-down place visited by some of the more loony people in town. His competitor, White Goodman, runs Globo Gym; a high-tech, big-money gym visited only by the socially elite. Peter hasn't been paying his bills lately, so when White finds out about this, he hires Kate Veach to get Average Joe's signed over into his name. There's not much Peter can do about this, unless he can raise up the fifty-thousand dollars needed to pay off his bills. Things look pretty bleak, until one of the members of his gym mentions a Dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas, where the grand prize is exactly fifty-thousand dollars. Peter rounds up the members from his gym and enters the tournament, but White sees these events and joins his own team in order to humiliate them on cable television...

Nice little comedy here, though the comedic moments weren't as plentiful as one would have expected. Sure, there's a number of funny scenes, and there's even a few hilarious ones... but after the obligatory movie-opening laughs, the jokes are few and far between. The storyline does keep things moving, as it was quite nicely done for the most part, but mixing in some more humor throughout the middle stretch of the film certainly would have helped things. The variety of character types presented was nice, as each of the main people featured here had their own distinct personalities and each was given ample time; nobody was really pushed off as only being there to take up space. While that did work out nicely in my opinion, the whole thing about the lack of humor here kind of came back to bite them in the ass, as none of the characters had any number of good comedic lines or scenes. Basically, the characters were built up nicely, but then became underused in the comedy section of things, which was quite the shame as some good things could have came out of them.

The performances by the actors and actresses here was decent enough for the most part, though I do have a huge gripe with Vince Vaughn in the lead role as Peter. While the guy is a good enough actor in the other films of his that I've seen, he really didn't fit in in this comedy role. He did alright in the actual acting department, but his attempts at comedic line-delivery were shoddy at best... though his burning-finale against White was pretty nice, the rest just didn't hold up. Ben Stiller (White) is beyond classic in his role though; normally, I don't like him at all, but he was comedy gold in his role of the health-freak asshole guy. Ben should definitely think about playing some more asshole characters in other films, as he's quite good at it. The other highlight of the film was Rip Torn playing Patches O'Houlihan, the coach for Average Joe's team. This guy had some of the best lines in the film, and pretty much stole every scene he was featured in. He had a decent number of scenes to begin with, but the film certainly wouldn't have been hurt had he had even more time to run on.

Overall, this one might be worth the rental when it hits DVD, but I certainly wouldn't recommend throwing down eight bucks for a ticket to see it in the theater, nor would this be my first choice for a rental when it does hit the aforementioned DVD.... but if all the good films have been rented out already, and you want a so-so comedy, this would be it. 5/10.
crazyloca5678 #1: crazyloca5678 - added August 3, 2004 at 11:51pm
This movie fuckin rocked i laughed so much i almost peed my pants Ben Stiller nad Vince Vaugn are the best
Big D #2: Big D - added August 4, 2004 at 3:02am
LOL...at least dodgeball wasn't like that when I was in elementary school. Anyway, it is a funny movie indeed.
turn the radio off #3: turn the radio off - added August 7, 2004 at 5:39am
They didn't use Vince Vaughn to his full comedy potential (ex. Swingers, and Made) but stiller made up for it. overall pretty funny movie.
smilesallround #4: smilesallround - added September 8, 2004 at 11:06pm
I LOVE THIS MOVIE VINCE VAUGHN IS AN AWSOME ACTOR! AND BEN STILLER IS SO FUNNY! " NO ONE MAKES ME BLEED MY OWN BLOOD" HAHAHA CLASSIC!
spookychild #5: spookychild - added September 12, 2004 at 12:43am
OO man this movie is freaking funny as hell
Crispy #6: Crispy - added November 16, 2004 at 2:43pm
YEah i thiought it was fucking hilarious
watchwhereuwalk #7: watchwhereuwalk - added November 27, 2004 at 10:45pm
one of my favorite movies of the year, mad funny
BuryMeAlive #8: BuryMeAlive - added May 11, 2005 at 7:39pm
It's allright, but not too funny.
bluemeanie #9: bluemeanie - added August 9, 2005 at 4:54am
Horrible. Waste of time. I love Vince Vaughn, but he was wasted here. When will people stop casting Ben Stiller in these same ridiculous roles? 2/10.
Lucid Dreams #10: Lucid Dreams - added November 22, 2010 at 3:46am
Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller really piss me off. They come out with a good movie once a fucking decade and that's it. 4/10
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