Tuesday, September 17, 2013

"Dodgeball", good fun for a plane

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Only on a plane someone would end watching a film like this. Hey! I'm not complaining with the affirmation. Just pointing out that I don't see myself looking for a film like this one if not on a particular circumstance like the aforementioned. Which it is a bit unfair, considering how many advertised and announced terrible films (don't get me started about "Gatsby" again). Sure, this is not a indispensable film, a masterpiece, or even a movie that you could define as really "worth watching". The fun is silly, agreed, but it gets going, you will laugh, and lacks any pretension. More than many Oscar-worthy numbers, teen terror stupidities, state-of-the-art movies, or 3-D bluffs that saturate theatres every year.

"Dodgeball" doesn't have a lot to be remembered in terms of storytelling as Director and writer Rawson Marshall Thurber is not worried at all about his script, a mere copy of the underdog tales seen a million times in this sub-genre of sports films, now with dodgeball, an uncommon practice out of the States (at least in Europe to my knowledge), an excuse to design a series of physical sketches based on the irrational but universal fun of seeing how someone is hit by a ball. Plus White Goodman, Ben Stiller's character, a villain so grotesque that's completely hilarious and steals the whole show. The whole Globo Gym, a few other secondary roles (the ESPN 8 announcers of "The Ocho", Gary Cole and Jason Bateman on top), the end of the credits, and an easygoing, little demanding vibe overall is quite enough to make you watch it, and for the majority of time, enjoy it. Then you have Lance Armstrong playing the mentor/oracle role, the living example of human success thanks to not to giving up when all hope seems to vanish to the hero (a not very funny Vince Vaughn). What an incredible gag done by accident (or better said, because of the hypocrisy/greed of someone who was a hero for many).

Trivial, but fun enough to be an ok choice to watch on a plane.
 

SCORE: 5,5/10

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