| | | Grab Life By The Ball
You'll dodge, duck, dip, dive...and laugh out loud watching Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller settle their differences in a winner-take-all dodgeball competition. Under the painful tutelage of legendary ADAA champ, Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn), Peter LaFleur (Vaughn) and his Average Joes take on the Purple Cobras, led by egomaniacal fitness guru, White Goodman (Stiller). It's an over-the-top underdog tale filled with hilarious sight gags and balls-out fun! What is UMDTM?
UMD, Universal Media Disc, is a brand-new and groundbreaking optical storage medium, designed for the high speed and efficient delivery of digital entertainment content that can store up to 1.8 GB of digital data on a 60mm disc -- or an entire feature film on a single UMD video. All UMD DVDs are produced in Widescreen and encoded using advanced AVC compression. UMD for PSP will play on the new PlayStation Portable handheld entertainment system.
Specifications
Diameter: 60 mmMaximum Capacity: 1.8GB (Single-sided, dual layer)Laser wavelength: 660nm (Red laser)
"The movie's a treasure of small gems." Desson Howe, Washington Post
"Unpretentious, unsophisticated and all the better for it." Jim Dyer, Empire
"Hilariously fake and rude." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
Editor's Note
In DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn team up once again (following STARSKY & HUTCH) for another comic romp. While hilariously satirizing modern-day gym culture, the film also celebrates a sport that has previously been relegated to the elementary school playground. Peter La Fleur (Vaughn) owns the decrepit Average Joe's gym, which has been losing its clients ever since the glitzy Globo Gym opened up across the street. White Goodman (Stiller), Globo Gym's main spokesman, is a preposterously vain egomaniac on the cusp of taking over La Fleur's failing business. La Fleur learns from a beautiful attorney (Christine Taylor) that if he doesn't come up with $50,000 in 30 days, his career running a gym will be over. Potential salvation arrives in the form of a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament, but conquering a sport one hasn't played in several decades isn't such an easy feat. Fortunately for Peter, he finds a coach for his team: the hardheaded, ex-superstar Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn). As Peter and his ragtag team make their way to the championship in Las Vegas, they must contend with White, who has assembled a team of his very own. Rawson Marshall Thurber's debut feature is a highly assured work, which features hilarious cameos from Chuck Norris, Lance Armstrong, David Hasselhoff, and William Shatner.
| Features | Audio: English, Spanish, French Dolby Digital Stereo | | DVD Quality Picture | | Full Length Movie | | Interactive Menus | | Previews | | Scene Selection |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Fox Home Entertainment |
| Release Date: 11/22/2005 |
| Running Time: 93 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2004 | | Catalog ID: 2229731 | | UPC: 00024543197317 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"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....Consistently funny..." 06/18/2004 p.E12Entertainment Weekly
"[A] slaphappy send-up of the whole sniffly underdog sports-movie genre, written and directed with a changeup pitch of whizzy aggression and bouncy merriness..." 07/09/2004 p.65 Uncut
"Superb performances from the deadpan Vaughn and the fearless Stiller in one of the funniest films of the year." 09/01/2004 p.132 Sight and Sound
"Vaughn recalls the seemingly effortless shtick Bill Murray trades on, and the unruffled sense of amiability he maintains, even during the daftest bits of knockabout, is the movie's chief pleasure." 10/01/2004 p.52-4 Premiere
"[I]t's a worthy addition to the genre....Thurber and company deliver the goods..." 12/01/2004 p.164 Chicago Sun-Times
"[With] Rip Torn getting enormous laughs with his training methods as their coach..." 12/03/2004 p.11 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 8 of 10
Of course, Dodgeball isn't a true underdog anything, but that's all part of the joke. 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. The approach works because many sports dramas are borderline unintentional parodies with less tension than a flaccid cable; all the filmmakers of Dodgeball had to do was to follow the plot-by-numbers approach, incorporate some obviously comedic material, and toss in a huge dose of over-the-top earnestness. The resulting product offers about 90 minutes of laughter (although the movie runs out of steam during its final third). - James Berardinelli
San Francisco Chronicle 5 of 10
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story isn't a funny movie so much as it's a funny idea. Just the word "dodgeball" is enough to evoke the beginning of a laugh, with its suggestion of grammar school frolic and playground sadism. Throw Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller into the leading roles, and all the comic elements seem there, except for a story and a script. - Mick LaSalle
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