Movie Review: Dodgeball A True Underdog Story

Dodgeball! A True Underdog Story 

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Written by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Starring Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Justin Long, Stephen Root, Jason Bateman

Release Date June 18th, 2004

Published June17th, 2004 

USA Today has dubbed them The Frat Pack. Actors Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Owen and Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell. Each has a tendency to appear in each other’s movies either as co-stars or in cameos. They tend to work with the same directors and writers. Most importantly they have teamed to make some of the funniest movies of the past few years. In Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, it's Vaughn and Stiller teaming up and once again the Frat Pack's brand of scatological insanity is in full effect for one very funny movie.

Vaughn stars as Peter La Fleuer, the slacker owner of a rundown little gym called Average Joe's. Peter takes a rather laid back approach to running the gym, patrons come and go as they please and pay for their memberships whenever they feel like it. It's no surprise that Peter's management now finds the gym in debt for about 50 grand in unpaid bills.

According to the bank's investigator, Kate (Christine Taylor), if Peter can't raise the cash in 30 days the gym will be sold to White Goodman (Stiller) the Napoleon-esque owner of Globo-Gym. White wants to flatten Average Joe's and turn it into a parking lot. He also wants Kate, who wants nothing to with him. despite her better judgment she is interested in Peter and his collection of wacky gym rats.

While Peter seems perfectly comfortable with closing the gym, his regulars including high school cheerleader Justin (Justin Long), obscure sports loving Gordon (Stephen Root) and Steve the Pirate (Allen Tudyk) who honestly believes he is a pirate, want to fight to save it. Their only hope is a 50,000-dollar grand prize dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas. Win the tournament and save the gym.

Of course Dodgeball is not about it's wacky tournament but the comic touches surrounding it and the hysterically over the top characters pulling it all off. First-time director Rawson Marshall Thurber is raw but knows a funny gag when sees one. The script is kind of a combination of Baseketball and a straight sports movie. Surprisingly though, there is little of the grossout humor expected of this kind of movie. Somehow the film earned a PG - 13 rating and you never would have noticed.

Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn work terrifically together with Vaughn's slacker charm balancing Stiller's manic schtick. Some have compared this Stiller dunderhead to his character in Zoolander, similar low-IQ narcissism. However when you look further back into Stiller's career to his villainous turn in the kids movie Heavyweights, you see he has played this role before. Of course the same could be said of Vaughn who perfected this likable frat boy routine in Old School.

Regardless of the character recycling Dodgeball stands on it's own as one of the funniest movies of 2004. Right up their with another Stiller -Vaughn teaming, Starsky and Hutch. As long as the movies continue to be this funny, they can recycle as much as they want.

Movie Review Skyscraper

Skyscraper (2018)

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber 

Written by Rawson Marshall Thurber 

Starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Chin Han, Roland Moller, Neve Campbell, Pablo Schreiber

Release Date July 13th, 2018

Published July 12th, 2018 

Releasing Skyscraper on the same weekend time frame when Die Hard was released 30 years earlier was a bad idea. Tributes abound this weekend to the staying power and quality of Die Hard and those who revisit the Bruce Willis classic will not look favorably upon the similarly plotted but far less accomplished Skyscraper. Just how bad is Skyscraper? Not even Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and his megawatt smile can save it.

Skyscraper stars The Rock as Will Sawyer, a former Army Ranger turned FBI Agent and now family man and entrepreneur. After retiring from the FBI following a mission that ended tragically, Will started a family with his wife Sarah, who happened to save his life after he nearly died in that failed raid I just mentioned. Will has also just launched his own security firm. Will’s pal Ben (Pablo Schreiber) has even gone to great lengths to get him his first client and what a client he is.

Zhao (Chin Han) has just opened the world’s largest building; he calls it ‘The Pearl’ for the giant pearl design that sits above the 200th floor. Before he can open the residential section of ‘The Pearl’ however, Zhao needs to get insured and that means a full security systems check and that leads him to Will. Unfortunately, for both Zhao and Will, a group of terrorists want something that Zhao has locked away inside ‘The Pearl’ and they will go to extreme measures to get it.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber is best known for the Ben Stiller comedy “Dodgeball.” He could have used some of that film’s sense of humor and good nature as Skyscraper is a dry, joyless exercise in simple minded, plot-heavy idiocy. The script, also by Thurber, is bursting at the seams with clumsy, forced, exposition to the point where characters communicate plot points by speaking out loud to no one but the movie watching audience.

I’m not kidding, at one point, the main baddie of Skyscraper, played by Roland Moller, talks to no one in particular and makes mention of something important to the plot of the movie. Later, The Rock is also alone and also expositing plot points to no one but us and the scene is so forced and clumsy that even Rock’s billion dollar charisma can’t sell the line. The Rock could sell ice cubes in the arctic but the awful dialogue of Skyscraper fully defeats him.

I’m a huge fan of Dwayne Johnson and I have been since his early days in the WWE. He’s always had an air about him, a swagger, a star presence that, even in subpar efforts, still shined through. Until now, I thought The Rock was invincible, the kind of actor who unfailingly elevated the movies he chose to star in. Here, however, with Skyscraper, even The Rock’s magnetism is defeated by a terrible script and subpar direction.

This Skyscraper should be condemned! Is what I would say if I were a terrible critic looking to score a cheap giggle. Instead, I will say that Skyscraper is one of the worst movies of 2018, a flat, dull-witted bit of action nonsense that can’t hold a candle to its undoubted influencer, Die Hard which, even 30 years later, feels fresh, fun and exciting and more so when compared to the dreck of Skyscraper.