Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Released 2004
Stars Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Rip Torn, Justin Long, Stephen Root, Joel David Moore, Chris Williams
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Of course, Dodgeball isn't a true underdog anything, but that's all part of the joke. A blistering satire of feel-good sports movies, this film makes its mark via the most direct route: it lampoons by adopting the tried-and-true "straight" formula and tweaking it a little. The approach works because many sports dramas are borderline unintentional parodies with less tension than a flaccid cable; all the filmmakers of Dodgeball had to do was to follow the plot-by-numbers approach, incorporate some obviously comedic material, and toss in a huge dose of over-the-top earnestness. The resulting product offers about 90 minutes of laughter (although the movie runs out of steam during its final third).

Summary by  James Berardinelli

I don't know why, but someone getting hit in the head makes me laugh. That happens an awful lot in this movie, and I chuckled throughout. It's funny how the movie works within the straight underdog sports formula and doesn't even pretend to do anything original with the plot. It just makes fun of the formula, and the end result is rather amusing. There's one scene, however, that made me laugh out loud for days, and that was Lance Armstrong's cameo. I'm a little surprised he agreed to do it, but it was this movie's moment of genius. --Bill Alward, December 11, 2004