Movies - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

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	Movies - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

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Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is a comedy from 20th Century Fox, written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and available on DVD, VHS, and UMD (PSP movies).

Plot

The plot involves the underdog gym Average Joe's, which tries to keep itself afloat by playing an important game of dodgeball against a glitzy, expensive gym called Globo Gym. Vaughn's character leads the Average Joe's team to a classic underdog win at the last moment in a sudden death playoff, utilizing the "5 D's of Dodgeball": Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and ... dodge. The film features cameos by celebrities such as Lance Armstrong, Chuck Norris, Hank Azaria, David Hasselhoff and William Shatner.

The DVD features an alternate ending in which the Average Joe's team loses and the movie ends thereafter. The audio commentary by director Rawson Marshall Thurber indicates that this was the original ending to the film, something many critics and Internet reviewers picked up and reported as fact. This is fact, because although the film commentary is a tongue-in-cheek spat between the director and actors, on the British DVD, the director's commentary for this alternate ending is in a separate section to the commentary for the rest of the film, and this one is only commented on by the director. In this the director reveals that he actually left the film for a time in protest at the ending being changed to Joe's team winning.

Despite relying largely on goofy comedy, the movie was relatively well-received by viewers and critics. Some even viewed the movie as a parody of sports tales as well as society's less-than-obscure social classes. The dialog contains quite a few obscure jokes that only viewers with a fair amount of background in history, literature, and pop culture will understand. There are also several moments of almost meta-referential humor, such as the "Deus ex machina" plaque on the treasure chest which suddenly appears near the end.

Institutions in the movie

ESPN 8 ("The Ocho"): "If it's almost a sport, we've got it!" This network is a riff on ESPN's growing empire of sports TV networks, which in 2004 numbered 5, not counting secondary services such as the Spanish-language "ESPN Deportes".
The American Dodgeball Association of America: The sanctioning body for the sport who has laid down the rules as follows:
* 6 players with one ball each; no gender specifications
* Catching of the ball counts as a reversal (i.e. The throwing player is out and another player on the catching team is allowed to come back on the field)
* No stepping beyond the red line which cuts the field horizontally in half
* Only ADAA balls can be used; personal balls are prohibited
* Sudden death: If all players from both teams are eliminated, one player from both teams will participate in this overtime from two triangles facing each other. The first player to hit his opponent wins; catching is irrelevant.
* All players on a team must wear matching uniforms.
Obscure Sports Quarterly: A quarterly magazine which reports on obscure sports, such as Midget Tossing.
Las Vegas University Learning Annex: The host of the Las Vegas International Dodgeball Open.

Teams at the Las Vegas International Dodgeball Open

Average Joe's
Globo Gym Purple Cobras
Skillz That Killz, the inner-city champions
MILF's
Lumberjacks
Team Blitzkrieg, the European champions
Kamikazes
Las Vegas Police Department
Poughkeepsie State Flying Cougars

Team Names Mentioned but Not Shown

MILFS
Moose Knucklers
Clown Punchers
Mulchers
She-Mullets
Wedgies
Yetis
Pouncers

Goofs

The beginning of the film, the Globo Gym commercial suggests that the film takes place in 1993 (by way of White Goodman showing a picture of himself in 1987, and then saying it was six years later. The commercial might have been recorded in 1993 and is still being aired; this is quite unlikely). However, a cameo appearance by Lance Armstrong makes the movie seem as though it were set in the 2000s, as Lance Armstrong was only diagnosed with Cancer in 1996, and won his first Tour de France in 1999. Also the commentator on ESPN 8 says that they have been broadcasting the World Dodgeball Championships every year since 1999. Also, Mona Lisa Smile
is listed as one of the DVDs Peter has overdue (the other two are pornos). This movie was certainly not released in 1993 and DVD players were not present in 1993.
All these signs point to the movie being set in the present day, which makes the ad the only mistake, unless the 1993 commercial was still being aired or it could be due to White Goodman's idiocy.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story ]

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