Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Critic Reviews

Ben Stiller is like a guy on the 1919 White Sox. He's rigged to lose. His comedy is the stuff of failure, and sometimes it's pleasurable watching him flit around in funny get-ups, only to have a pretty costar put him down.Read the full review

In a miraculous gift to the audience, 20th Century-Fox does not reveal all of the best gags in its trailer.Read the full review

Hilariously fake and rude. And thus true and tonic, if you know what I mean.Read the full review

Mean-spirited vulgarity and homosexual panic. Read the full review

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.Read the full review

Yes, the movie's watchable, and there are about six good laughs in it, but six good (not great) laughs in 90 minutes is pretty paltry for a comedy.Read the full review

It's coarse, primitive, regressive, often very stupid, and sometimes, against all odds, really a hoot.Read the full review

In outline, the story is pretty funny, and the film's outlandish takes on sports-movie conventions deliver some laughs. But Thurber chooses the low road to those laughs so often that he undermines his own satirical design. His actors certainly deliver amusing, spirited performances, but again, they get done in by relentless adolescent humor. Read the full review

Nobody eviscerates the scary depths of male narcissism with such ferocity, and it is a huge relief to find Mr. Stiller flexing his oiled, low-comedy triceps with such vengeful glee. Read the full review