Dodgeball too funny to avoid
James Mack, Jr.
Issue date: 6/25/04 Section: Entertainment
There seems to be a new league of comedies that are appearing in movie theaters over the past few years. Stories about underdogs overcoming ridiculous adversity by competing for their honor and place in society. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is, what I believe, the culmination of these types of movies and contains all the typical ingredients necessary for this type of story line. The tough thing about this type of movie isn't gauging how funny it is, but how original the story is as well. Dodgeball manages to pull off a good comedy, with a few drawbacks, that overall elicits genuine laughter from the viewer.
The hardest part of critizing a movie is that you must find the weakest link. Sometimes it's easy because the actor should not quit his day job, and other times it's rough because everything was so good about the movie that you have to start nitpicking. The latter scenario applies to Dodgeball. In all the Vince Vaughn movies I have watched, I cannot say I say one of his movies that I did not absolutely love. On top of that, he is such an incredibly diverse actor and he manages to fit like a glove into whatever role he plays. It is sad that from all my observations of Dodgeball, Vince Vaughn seemed to bring a black cloud wherever he appears in the movie. His character, while starting off with a strong development, ultimately provides a weak addition to the movie and a poor protagonist. I will give Vaughn this: From being a empathetic FBI agent in the Cell to Reese in Starsky and Hutch, Vaughn seems to have all of his bases already covered.
While I think he was relatively weak, Vaughn's character didn't seem to impact the movie holistically. His shortcomings were more than made up for in the phenomenal scripting and humor, and strong performances by Ben Stiller, Stephen Root and Christine Taylor. Root, who you may remember as the stapler guy in Office Space, and Taylor, from Zoolander and Hey, Dude! on Nickelodeon, both managed to provide a supportive role to Vaughn's protagonist characters. Standing above the rest, however, is Stiller. He seems to just fit so well into the mentally imbalanced adversary role. Even though this was meant as a comedy, sometimes I began to wonder is Stiller honestly needed to act half of his parts. The comedy of Stiller and Root seem to collective insure the status of this movie as a comedy, despite Vaughn's scripting issues.
The hardest part of critizing a movie is that you must find the weakest link. Sometimes it's easy because the actor should not quit his day job, and other times it's rough because everything was so good about the movie that you have to start nitpicking. The latter scenario applies to Dodgeball. In all the Vince Vaughn movies I have watched, I cannot say I say one of his movies that I did not absolutely love. On top of that, he is such an incredibly diverse actor and he manages to fit like a glove into whatever role he plays. It is sad that from all my observations of Dodgeball, Vince Vaughn seemed to bring a black cloud wherever he appears in the movie. His character, while starting off with a strong development, ultimately provides a weak addition to the movie and a poor protagonist. I will give Vaughn this: From being a empathetic FBI agent in the Cell to Reese in Starsky and Hutch, Vaughn seems to have all of his bases already covered.
While I think he was relatively weak, Vaughn's character didn't seem to impact the movie holistically. His shortcomings were more than made up for in the phenomenal scripting and humor, and strong performances by Ben Stiller, Stephen Root and Christine Taylor. Root, who you may remember as the stapler guy in Office Space, and Taylor, from Zoolander and Hey, Dude! on Nickelodeon, both managed to provide a supportive role to Vaughn's protagonist characters. Standing above the rest, however, is Stiller. He seems to just fit so well into the mentally imbalanced adversary role. Even though this was meant as a comedy, sometimes I began to wonder is Stiller honestly needed to act half of his parts. The comedy of Stiller and Root seem to collective insure the status of this movie as a comedy, despite Vaughn's scripting issues.
