Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Sleeper hits are often the surprise of the summer. The huge blockbusters go by, make a bit of cash and disappear into the sunset. The opening weekends are massive, then everyone tells everyone else how it wasn't really that good, and the following weekend the figures have plummeted, and the obligatory sequel is put on hold. Sleepers pop up from no where, open slowly and then continue to grow over the forthcoming weeks as word of mouth grows. So, the question is Where the hell did Dodgeball come from?

It's usual that films released in one month have been really heavily promoted from months before. Websites, teaser trailers, posters, magazine interviews, causing pr guru's across the land to spend huge amounts of money. The first time I heard about Dodgeball was when it flew into the USA movie charts at number one. Steven's Spielberg's film The Terminal was beaten to the top spot, which also gave Spielberg his worst opening weekend since Amistad. Now, Spielberg must be pretty pissed, because even he must of wondered where Dodgeball had come from.

Dodgeball: A true underdog story (to give it it's full title) is fairly standard in structure and plot wise it reminded me a lot of Kingpin. Although, the outcome is never in doubt, the storyline races along with too many hilarious moments to mention. Stiller plays White Goodman, the owner of a rather large gym called Globo gym. The persona is completely over the top and Stiller manages to squeeze every last laugh from this sleazeball of a character. On the other side of the street is Average Joe's gym owned by Peter Da Fleur (Vince Vaughn). The gym is run down and the punters are of all shapes and sizes. Peter doesn't really have a goal in life and just likes ambling on without worrying about anything. Because of this the gym has suffered and subsquently is in danger of being bought out by Globo gym. Unless, of course, Peter can come up with $50,000 to pay off the second mortgage.

Peter and his motley crew decide to enter the national Dodgeball competition to try to win the grand prize of.......Guess for it.........$50,000!!! Thus starts the film on its merry way to the joyful conclusion. The appearance of Rip Torn as Patches O'Houlihan, a national Dodgeball hero, brings some of the funniest moments of the film. His foul mouth and dodgeball training techniques are hilarious, and Torn manages to steal a lot of the funniest one liners (similar to his appearance in Men in Black). The team members involving a fat man with a male order bride, a wannabe pirate(Alan Tudyk, Sunny from I,Robot (honestly)), a dweeb who's looking for love and a cheerleading love struck teen (Justin Long from Jeepers Creepers). Each character brings about its individual laughs and manage to bounce off each other well.

The actual sport is pretty silly and involves throwing a ball as hard as you can at your opponents. It really is amazing how seeing someone getting smacked in the face or the balls can be funny. It's obvious a lot of thought has gone into the rules and spectacle of the Dodgeball tournament. The ESPN channel section is great and the commentaters are so enthusiastic its cringing! There are so many little jokes that this film should still be funny after several watches because you'll laugh at different things.

This leads us on to the age old question is Ben Stiller funny? At times, his Goldman character is ridicously over the top. I was worried at the start of the film if I was going to find this funny after seeing Starksy and Hutch earlier this year. Luckily, my doubts were seen off right at the start of the film. The opening sequence immediately gives you an idea of Stiller's character. Pompous, arrogant, rich, sleazy and slimy. But, ultimately very funny. A definite contender for funniest character of the year. As, for the film its probably managed to offend every different section of the American community so lets just let it do it here and laugh while it happens!