Dodgeball (2004)

  I have never been a big Ben Stiller fan.  I have softened towards him in recent years, mostly thanks to Tropic Thunder, but a lot of his earlier work I find derivative and annoying.  With that in mind, I thought I would re-watch one and see if it was still awful or if I was being unfair towards it.

Peter (Vince Vaughn) owns a small local gym.  Unfortunately, his soft-heartedness and lack of ambition prevents him from collecting dues owed by his members and his gym is being foreclosed on by the bank.  They have sent a lawyer, Kate (Christine Taylor), to work with Peter on getting his gym in order before it is bought by Globo-Gym, a huge fitness corporation run by White Goodman (Ben Stiller).  Goodman is determined to run Peter out of business and to nail Kate, so when he finds that Peter has entered a team to the National Dodgeball Championship in Las Vegas in the hopes of winning $50,000 to pay off the bank, Goodman enters a team as well.  After a tense showdown between the two groups in the local bar, legendary dodgeball coach Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn) offers to coach the Average Joe's to victory.

This was not nearly as bad as I remember it being.  It has its off-putting moments but overall it's a decent comedy.  Ben Stiller is almost physically unrecognizable which helped me distance my dislike for him from this movie.  It also has good supporting help from Justin Long, Alan Tudyk and Stephen Root.  There are also a number of great cameos, particularly near the end of the movie.

This film has a huge fanbase already, so if you've never seen it, you'll probably like it.  I still wouldn't own it, but I'm not going to rush to find the remote if I come across it on cable.