Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Television is not that bad, ah?

 This is called “a true underdog story” to hide the clichés in the plot. By pointing out tongue in cheek that this sports comedy is a true story audiences could be forgiven for thinking they were getting something original. From the outset this is predictable so we might hope the comedy audiences pay money for would sustain the ninety-odd minutes of screen time. No way.

 Although the true underdogs of this could be the careers of it leads, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, who both haven’t hit home runs in recent years with Stiller’s Zoolander and Along Came Polly, and Vaughn’s Old School, they still give the movie something to cheer about.

 In Dodgeball they are competing gym managers; Vaughn from Average Joe’s (the name aptly describes the type of gym), and Stiller of Globo gym, an upmarket snob vanity project (Stiller mainly gets laughs at the beginning when he is spoofing the gym culture that Globo gym represents).

 Stiller as White Goodman is going to take over Average Joe’s when Vaughn’s Peter La Fleur must come up with $50,000 to pay off his debts. Their solution is to enter the dodgeball competition in Las Vegas, so these underdogs can do what underdogs are supposed to do - beat the odds.

 Except the odds are stacked against viewers when watching this none too compelling scatological comedy unwind itself in an excruciatingly paint by numbers manner to service its way through to its rudimentary feel good ending with a message, which is what Shrek 2 told us months ago. Our self images must be getting better.