Review: dodgeball mania

Take the pre-teen gymnasium game of Dodgeball and put it into a packed stadium, replace the 12-year-olds with full-grown adults, and you've created the setting for this week's campus film, "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story."

The story begins with Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn), an incompetent and absent-minded owner of the health club Average Joe. Although rather nutty, the club's members are, loyal. When the vulgar and egotistical fitness guru White Goodman (Ben Stiller), owner of the glitzy Globo Gym, buys the second mortgage on the run-down Average Joe, the cherished club is put in danger of extinction. Goodman threatens to turn it into Globo Gym's parking lot.

Beautiful lawyer Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor), who works for the bank, is assigned to Peter's case. She informs him that if he wants to save his club, he has 30 days to collect $50,000. Peter and his loyal band of friends, a compilation of losers and abnormal misfits (one guy thinks he's a pirate), decide to play in the Dodgeball tournament in Vegas.

The tournament promises the winner $50,000. After hearing the plan to save the Average Joe club, undermining his plans, White becomes determined to defeat the Average Joes. He starts his own rather ridiculous team (which includes a very hairy Russian woman): "the Purple Cobras".

The Average Joes are anything but skilled in Dodgeball, and their future success looks bleak until famous Dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn) comes to their aid. O'Houlinhan demands intense levels training, using rather unconventional techniques to prepare his pitiful players. While whimsical, these scenes contain some of the movie's funniest clips. The film eventually reaches its predictable climax: a face-off between the the "good guys" and the "bad guys" - the Average Joes vs. the Purple Cobras.

"Dodgeball" is typical for being Ben Stiller comedy: a rather redundant and unoriginal plot with regressed males, copious amounts of overacting, and vulgar humor. The plot could have easily taken place within a short sketch, but instead was stretched out over an hour and a half.

That being said, "Dodgeball" does evoke some moments of good, hearty laughter and includes some surprise quirky twists. With no expectations other than to see silly, juvenile humor, the viewer will not leave disappointed. With its random spurts of hilarity, "Dodgeball" is a nice break from the intellectual drill of a busy week.

It plays in the Science Center Friday and Saturday nights.