Movie Reviews

There's no denying it: people getting hurt is sometimes really funny -- especially if the pain is inflicted in unusual and original ways. I think that's why I liked Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which is essentially a movie about people throwing things at other people. Sheer genius, I tell you.

Vince Vaughn plays Peter La Fleur, owner of Average Joe's, a low-level, run down gymnasium which has recently been audited by the IRS and hit with $40,000 in back-taxes. This is good news for White Goodman (Ben Stiller), owner of Average Joe's cross-street rival Globo Gym, who wants Average Joe's to shut down so Globo can continue it's corporate expansion. One of Average Joe's clients stumbles across an advertisement calling for teams to enter the annual tournament for the American Dodgeball Association of America. Top prize: $40,000. Peter puts together a misfit team for the tournament, and, not wanting to be out-done, White puts one together as well, and thus sets up the majority of the film's plot.

The variety of strange people on both teams provides for a lot of humour, some good and some bad (I'm not sure if the pirate dude really worked very well). But the best comedy comes from the many interactions between Vaughn and Stiller. Stiller's character initiates a couple of rapid-fire dialogue sequences that he thinks are intimidating towards Vaughn, but instead are hilariously pathetic.

Dodgeball isn't the greatest comedy I've seen, but Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and excessive amounts of dodgeball-induced pain make it worthwhile.