Such an attitude also extends to most of the characters. But at least it pitches itself as bad taste from the start and follows through with it, rather than claiming to be shocking and pulling its punches for fear of alienating its audience. The film unashamedly pitches itself to teenage boys and it's impossible to argue that all such jokes have dated well over the last 14 years. There's no real reason for the team's kit to get mixed up with that of the S&M-themed team except to attract a laugh - just as there is no reason for Kate to reveal herself to be bisexual at the end of the film. Much of the humour in Dodgeball is derived from outrageous situations reminiscent of the National Lampoon stable or the better works of the Farrelly brothers. Having let its audience get settled into the story, it attempts to blind-side them by being offensive, profane and just plain silly - and while not every joke successfully lands, it deserves credit for its consistent effort. What it opts for instead is using the familiarity as a springboard into a gallery of over-the-top characters and outrageous slapstick from which very few people emerge unscathed. It doesn't do anything to either challenge or subvert the narrative beats of the sports film, and from a structural point of view it brings very little that is new to the table. The kindest thing that you can say about Dodgeball is that it is fully aware of how generic it is, and is trying to having the most fun it can within those limiting parameters.

You know from the outset that the underdogs are going to try their hardest to win, will come up against a team which is richer, more privileged or just generally better than them, things will get worse before they get better, and eventually through the power of teamwork and/or individual flair they will win the day (and someone may get the girl in the process). But the beats of sports films are so predictable - at least when it comes to American offerings - that the sport itself becomes almost completely unimportant. It's easy to point at certain films which have created individual cliches within it - it's hard to watch any training montage without thinking of Rocky, for instance. But taken as an example of genre film-making, it does just about enough to scrape a pass and sustain our attention while doing so.Įven by general Hollywood standards, sports films are some of the most tightly formulaic offerings out there. Its humour is undeniably juvenile, and it would be very hard to argue that it brings anything new to the table as a sports movie. But in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (Dodgeball hereafter), they do find some common ground, thanks to a story which is as old as dirt and a willingness to make fun of its main characters. These two different approaches to comedy are very hard to reconcile, especially within the terms that Fry had couched them. While in America anyone can make it to the big time and their success garners praise and adulation, in Britain misery is ironically celebrated and success is either rare or something always happening to other people.

In Britain, on the other hand, comedy protagonists are usually underdogs steeped in character flaws, who go out of their way to be a good person but regularly come a cropper through self-sabotage, events beyond their control or a combination of the two. He replied that in America, the standard comedy protagonist was a fast-talking wise-cracker who could talk his way out of any situation and was completely above people in authority who stood in his way.

Stephen Fry was once asked what he felt was the difference between British humour and American humour.

Dodgeball movie stiller