Obscure Sports Strangeness
Dodgeball Finds Humor in Playground Game

If watching obscure cable channels like GSN is your idea of fun, you've probably seen "Extreme Dodgeball," a competition that pits grown adults against each other in a semi-pro sport of the classic playground game. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. By the same token, I wouldn't have believed that the new film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story could be funny if I hadn't seen it. Despite my better judgment, I saw the film -- and I enjoyed it.

When Ben Stiller makes a comedy these days, people take notice. With solid hits like Starsky & Hutch and Meet the Parents under his belt, Stiller's presence in a film can guarantee a good opening weekend with the teen crowd. They aren't looking for art. They aren't looking for insightful commentary. They're just looking for laughs. Stiller delivers it in spades.

Stiller plays the bad guy, White Goodman, a former fatty turned exercise guru who wants to tear down the gym next to his to make additional parking for his customers. The owner of Average Joe's Gym is Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) a guy who exists without really living. His house, car, and business are a mess and he doesn't really care. His gym is a clubhouse for dysfunctional types including a 90-pound weakling high school student (Justin Long from TV's "Ed") and a guy named Steve (Alan Tudyk) who thinks he's a pirate.

The basic premise of the film is a bad cliché. The good guys must raise $50,000 by the end of the month or the bad guys will take away their business. As luck would have it, a contest offers the exact amount of money necessary to save them, and the good guys put together a team to win it. When the bad guys hear, they too enter the competition to make sure the good guys don't win. It all comes down to the final match and... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it (as if I could).

The point of Dodgeball is not the end but the journey. This is a film that is a comedy because of the individual moments, not the overall story. When the Average Joe's coach (played by Rip Torn) says "If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball" and makes Gordon (Stephen Root) run across a busy street, it's funny. When Gordon gets hit by not one -- but two -- cars, it's even funnier.

Stiller makes White Goodman a stereotypical self-involved egomaniac. The character isn't nearly as developed as, say, Long's suffering high school loser. When Goodman tries to seduce the bank examiner (Christine Taylor) it's more pathetic than funny. At times, it's almost scary because he seems to skate that thin line between persistence and stalking.

The whole story pays off, however, when the Average Joe's make it to the national competition (after winning the regionals against a Girl Scout troop). The audience sees the spectacle through the camera lens of ESPN 8 (The "Ocho!"). The commentators (Gary Cole and Justin Bateman) are hilarious. Bateman is the clueless color man who is there for flavor, not for the fine points of the game. When Cole says at one point that the Average Joe's may have to forfeit, Bateman retorts with "It's a risky strategy, let's see if it pays off." The commentary from the game is the high point of the film, reminiscent of Fred Willard's work in the mockumentary Best in Show.

It's comedy like this that keeps Dodgeball moving forward, despite its predictable storyline. Even the filmmakers acknowledge the obvious clichés in the movie: the prize money at the end of the film is delivered in a pirate's chest marked "Deus Ex Machina." Even Stiller makes his own comment about the ending of the film during the credits. Regardless of how overused the plot or how obvious the conclusion, it's a fun film that made me laugh.

Finally, be sure to sit through all the credits to see Stiller's funny, but disturbing, "dance."

MY RATING: 5 out of 10.

RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 92 min.