Ben Stiller Delivers in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Written: Jun 29 '04 (Updated Oct 06 '07)
Product Rating:
Pros: Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. Very funny movie.
Cons: Little crude a few times. Predictable.
The Bottom Line: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. People looking for a funny movie should give this one a chance.
dragonfire88's Full Review: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
I don’t like sports. They just don't interest me. However, for some reason, I've seen and enjoyed a lot of sports related movies, especially comedies. I wasn't sure about Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story at first, but after seeing some previews and reading some reviews, I decided that I wanted to see it.
Peter Le Fleur owned Average Joe’s, a small gym. It was located across the street from Globo Gym, a huge, fancy gym that was owned and run by White Goodman. Regular guys went to Average Joe’s, though Steve did think he was a pirate. The people at Globo Gym were in great shape and looked perfect. There was even a section of the gym where cosmetic surgery was done on members. Peter and White didn’t get along. Kate Veatch came to see Peter because he hadn’t been making the mortgage payments on the gym. He hadn’t collected dues from the members in eighteen months. If he didn’t come up with $50,000 in thirty days, he would lose the gym. Peter learned that White had plans to buy Average Joe’s and turn it into a parking facility for Globo Gym.
The guys at the gym tried to think up a way to raise the money. Gordon found an advertisement for a dodgeball tournament being held in Las Vegas. First prize was $50,000. They don’t do too well at first, but then Patches O’Houlihan, a former professional dodgeball player, started to coach them. Kate was around the gym trying to go over financial records and she and Peter became friends. White wanted to date Kate, and pursued her, even getting her fried thinking she would go out with him then. Kate then joined Peter’s team. White found out about the dodgeball tournament and put his own team together. White was determined to make sure Peter couldn’t save his gym.
CAST
Vince Vaughn - Peter Le Fleur
Christine Taylor - Kate Veatch
Ben Stiller - White Goodman
Rip Torn - Patches O’Houlihan
Justin Long - Justin
Stephen Root - Gordon
Joel David Moore - Owen
Chris Williams - Dwight
Alan Tudyk - Steve the pirate
Missi Pyle - Fran
Gary Cole - Cotton McKnight
Jason Bateman - Pepper Brooks
Hank Azaria - Young Patches
Rawson Marshall Thurber - Director
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was released in June of 2004. The movie was 92 minutes long and rated PG-13. There was some crude humor and sexual references in the movie. This isn’t a movie for little kids to see. Parents should see the movie first to decide if they want their older children seeing it.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story wasn’t a complicated movie in any way. It was fairly simple. The guys from Average Joe’s gym entered a dodgeball tournament to try to win enough money to safe the gym. White didn’t want Peter to secede and entered the tournament with his own team. That was pretty much it for the plot. It wasn’t the most original plot either. There have been other movies about a sports team that was an underdog in some kind of tournament. This was the first movie dealing with dodgeball though. The movie really was predictable, but it was still very entertaining.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was hilarious. I laughed throughout the movie. It was the funniest movie I’ve seen in a while. Several characters said or did things that were funny. There were a few things that were done for laughs that were a bit gross, but there wasn’t anything that was too disgusting. There was some crude humor, so people who don’t like that sort of thing may not like this movie. Some things that were done were sexually suggestive. White had a special cup that he could inflate when he was trying to impress women. White said and did funny things every time he turned up. Just his moustache and hairstyle made me giggle at times. Other characters did and said some funny things, but I think White was the funniest character in the movie. He did something strange with a piece of pizza at one point. There is a little something that happens at the end of the credits that was funny. It was a bit gross, but funny.
When I was in school, dodgeball was played during gym different times. The game could be violent. Some kids enjoyed trying to hurt others by throwing the balls as hard as they could. The matches in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story did get a bit violent at times. People were hit in the head, or a tender area of the body. During the training, Patches was a bit brutal with the team and was throwing wrenches at them. At one point, Kate did something to White when he wouldn’t take no for an answer. There were things that happened in the movie that were funny that were a little violent. This really wasn’t a violent movie.
Kate and Peter met early on in the movie. There did seem to be a bit of an attraction between them. White was interested in Kate, and he was very blatant about it. He seemed to think that he was irresistible to women. Justin was interested in a girl from his high school. Owen felt like he would never find a woman. Then he saw Fran, the only woman on White’s team. Owen and Fran were attracted to each other. There wasn’t much related to any of the relationships in the movie. There were no sex scenes in the movie, but there were a few kisses. Some of the male characters were shown without their shirts.
I thought that the acting in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was good. Ben Stiller was hilarious as White. He used some of the funniest looking expressions at different times. The way he talked reminded me a bit of his character in Zoolander, though White wasn’t as dumb. Stiller was over the top and over acting some, but it worked perfect for this character. Vince Vaughn was in Starsky & Hutch with Stiller. In that movie, Vaughn was the bad guy. This time, he was a good guy, though Stiller was still his adversary. I thought that Vaughn was good. He wasn’t as funny as Stiller, but he was still good. Jason Bateman was also in Starsky & Hutch. His role was smaller in this movie. He played one of the commentators at the dodgeball tournament. His character, Pepper, acted a bit goofy. Gary Cole played the other commentator. I haven’t seen Christine Taylor in that many other movies. She is married to Ben Stiller, and this is the second movie they’ve done together. They were both in Zoolander. Kate seemed to be a lot like her character in Zoolander.
Rip Torn was very good as Patches. The character was very different from his character in the Men in Black movies. Hank Azaria made a brief appearance as a young Patches in a training video. Stephen Root was good as Gordon. I hadn’t realized before that he did voices in Finding Nemo and Ice Age. I thought that Alan Tudyk, who played Steve, looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Then I checked and saw that he was in Firefly, a tv show I loved that got cancelled too soon. He also did a voice in Ice Age.
CHARACTERS
Peter La Fleur - He owned Average Joe’s gym. He was laid back about a lot of things, but didn’t want to loose his gym. He had his doubts about the team’s ability to win. He didn’t like White.
Kate Veatch - She worked for the bank and was trying to get the gym’s financial records straight. She ended up joining the dodgeball team after White had her fired.
White Goodman - Owner of Globo Gym. White was arrogant and acted like a jerk. He wanted to date Kate, and just assumed that she would be interested. He didn’t like Peter and wanted to flatten Average Joe’s gym to make a parking facility for his gym. He was in good shape, but he had some food issues.
Patches O’Houlihan - Former professional dodgeball player that was coaching Peter’s team. Patches was hard on the team at times. He said some outrageous things.
I really enjoyed Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. I thought the movie was very funny and I’m glad I went to see it. I am sure this will be added to my DVD collection once it is out. There were some crude and possibly offensive things in the movie, so it isn’t for everyone.
You ll dodge, duck, dip, dive...and laugh out loud watching Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller settle their differences in a winner-take-all dodgeball compe...More at Buy.com
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.