Dodgeball - A True Underdog Story (DVD 2005)

I liked this movie, it was really funny. The cast was great - the story was a tail as old of time - underdogs - but the flim showed it in a new way.
I really found steve the prirate funny - i laughed out loud
The features on this DVD are good - a wide range of extras to keep you entitained for hours.
I would suggest this flim for anybody - its great.

I avoided seeing this movie for ages because I'm not that fond of Ben Stiller, and I thought the tagline ("Grab Life By The Balls") boded badly for the attached movie. But what do you know, I was wrong! This is a movie for anyone who has ever been left standing, hot with shame, till the very last when teams got picked for sports at school. So, that's quite a lot of us, then...
Vince Vaughn plays Pete laFleur, owner/operator of rundown Average Joe's Gym, populated by an unappealing bunch of geeky misfits, and almost horizontally laid-back in his approach to life. Ben Stiller dons a very nasty Kajagoogoo type mullet and Village People-crossed-with-Fu Manchu moustache to play Pete's nemesis, White Goodman, a neurotic egomaniac with the fashion sense of Mr. Motivator and the easy-going charm of Josef Stalin. Goodman (who isn't a good man, boom boom) hates LaFleur, and his scuzzy little back-street gym, and wants to level it to make way for a multi-storey car park for his own massive Globo Gym (boo, hiss). Knowing LaFleur's laid-back nature, he correctly guesses that his book-keeping won't be up to snuff, and dispatches a lawyer from the local bank to investigate and bring Average Joe's down.
This is a semi-parody of the Big American Sports Movie (hello, Bring It On, Step Up, and football movies ad nauseum). Naturally, the little guys fight back. Naturally, the lawyer is a woman and falls for LaFleur's charm. Naturally, there's a big showdown in which the little guys are vastly outgunned, demoralised and all but crushed before they start. And, OK plot spoiler here, naturally they suck it up and beat the bad guys, naturally they bond, pull together, and become a real team, naturally the nice guy gets the girl after some strife and heart-searching, and naturally White Goodman goes home with his nose in a sling and a rip in his spandex tights. There's even a grizzled veteran to whip the losers into shape before the Big Fight.
There's nothing particularly new here, but the story is told with huge aplomb, and the sport of dodgeball itself is so intrinsically funny, you can't help but watch and be charmed.
Standouts: Justin Long as Justin, the geeky high school kid. He has the biggest array of pratfall faces I've ever seen, and of all the characters, he gets pasted the hardest and the most often. Hilarious. Watch the extras.
Alan Tudyk as Steve the wannabe pirate. Bizarre but lovable. Tudyk rarely disappoints, and here's no exception.
Rip Torn plays Patches O'Houlihan, legendary dodgeball player and coach, who comes out of retirement to kick our heroes into shape. Looking like a shrapnel-ravaged war hero, he squeaks on in his wheelchair and steals the show.
The bonus features /extras are great - lots of featurettes, deleted scenes, gag reel... the featurettes threaten to be funnier than the movie sometimes. very good.
And finally, a dishonourable mention has to go to White Goodman's inflatable codpiece. Bad taste? Absolutely. Funny? Absolutely.