Dodgeball (film): Dumb and funny
If you follow me it should be evident how it is that I decided to write about this movie. This film is silly, that much is certain. However, if you grew up in the west you almost certainly can relate to the source material as pretty much everyone played this game as a kid.
source
.jpg){kind=link}
Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn) owns a pretty horrible gym named "Average Joe's" and is facing financial difficulties. He is located in close proximity to Globo-Gym which is operated by White Goodman (Ben Stiller) and these two guys are polar opposites of one another.
Average Joes is going to be shut down unless they can come up with $50,000 in the next 30 days and as luck would have it, there is a dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas in the next month with a top prize of exactly that amount. There is no denying the telegraphing of the plot-line here. That isn't the point though.
source
Goodman's team is completely ridiculous and to be fair it sort of personifies gym-junkies who really don't integrate very well with other people in the real world outside of the gym. They base all sense of self worth on how much someone can bench and how chiseled their abs are. His crew tends to be quite witless and in all other avenues of life they are completely lacking.
source
I feel as though this was pretty much Stiller's modus operandi in the last 90's and early 2000's and it made him very rich in the process. He has seemed to shy away from this type of film in recent years, focusing on more serious roles with a comic twist... presumably to try to show he's got some chops outside of the comedy genre. I think he works well in both but will certainly be remembered for his more silly roles and I think he thrives in said environment even if it does mean that he will continuously work with the same people such as Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn.
Filled with national and racial stereotypes, if this film was released today I am sure that the people out there that want to squash everything fun in life would stage protests and make a real scene over it. How I long to return to those days when people weren't perpetually looking for something to be offended by. This film, despite its obviously absurd story and characters, actually received good ratings from professional critics as well as common folk like myself. It has a 70% RT rating and for the type of film it is this is a really great result. It also made buckets of money, bringing in over 8 times the $20 million budget at the box office.
On a scale of "Urgh!" to "Wowsers!" I give Dodgeball an overall rating of...
"Yip Yip Yip"
Would you believe my wife's second name is Houlihan so we started called her 'Patches' after seeing this film. "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball' 😂😂😂. Good old Patches Houlihan.
Posted using Partiko Android
oh what a fantastic coincidence! Don't forget the 5 D's of Dodgeball.
I saw this really funny movie also. It thaught first when i saw your blog about the movie dodge, duck, dip, dive, dodge :)
The plot don't seem that offensive to me really, I think its cool and taking in 20m$ in the box office at that time was really a massive amount of success in my opinion. The characters are a bit funny though but I think it sells it quite well for me.
It wasn't offensive to me or anyone else I know... However, there are professional-offense-finders now who will stop at nothing to rain on a parade.
Dumb and funny... Thats the best way to sum it up. 😁
I did laugh quite a bit. Theres something about films that know what they are and does that well.
Posted using Partiko Android
that was a good movie for me :D
Yes indeed!
Quite the over the top 90's SNL style comedy.
I just like Ben Stiller.
This was a great movie. I still watch it when it comes on TV from time to time. My dad said he was interested in watching it because he used to play dodgeball in school and I quickly had to let him know that he probably would be disappointed. My parents are pretty conservative and the humor in here would definitely not amuse them. F'n-A Cotton. The Chuck Norris cameo was awesome. It is just a goofy good movie. It is funny watching Christine Taylor be appalled by Ben Stiller knowing they are married in real life. :)