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review: Do you have any idea how many times they say the word "dude" in this movie? Well, my ex-boyfriend and I were curious, so I took out my notebook and kept track. I feel pretty confident that we caught every use of this word. I counted it 90 times! The movie is about 90 minutes long! For those of you who do not excel at math (that would be me), this averages out to one use per minute! When he and I left the theater, that word just kept slipping out of my mouth. I was shocked and, quite frankly, frightened.
You're probably staring at your computer monitor in disbelief at this point. I know...can you believe I went to see this movie? Well, can you believe I enjoyed this movie? I know! I don't even like sports, and I'm not a big fan of slapstick movies. However, I'd hate to think I've become some closed-minded cinema snob. So, we went to see it.
In a nutshell: the creators of that wacky cartoon South Park star as two losers, Coop (Parker) and Remer (Stone), who invent a new game combining the rules of baseball and basketball, thus "baseketball." (Ingenious, no?) The residents of their suburban neighborhood flock to the boys' driveway to watch them play, attracting the attention of an eccentric millionaire (played by poor Ernest Borgnine) who wants to turn the game into a national sport, implementing rules to keep the game wholesome, unlike other sports games that have become all about money.
This is going to sound crazy, but the film does make an excellent point about the ruthlessness and commercialism of sports. They speak out against how teams move from city to city, players are traded from team to team and product endorsements are more important than the love of the game. When Borgnine's character passes away and the game is handed over to Coop to maintain, Jenny McCarthy (Borgnine's wife of one month) and another guy team up to try and take control of the sport and profit from it. They succeed to an extent, turning Remer into a sports celebrity, whose arrogance and greed alienates his teammates.
There were even some moments of sentimentality, particularly between Coop and actress Yasmine Bleeth, who portrays the head of an organization for children. During these scenes, I kept thinking, "Okay, they're going to do something lewd and disgusting to make fun of this situation..." but then they wouldn't. That kind-of surprised me.
Which isn't to say there wasn't a lot of lewd and disgusting stuff in this film. Part of the game of baseketball is to "psyche out" the shooter, and some of the "psyche outs" were absolutely repulsive. Not to mention, this whole anti-politcally correct trend in movies is getting out of hand. (BASEketball takes shots at homosexuals, disabled children, etc.)
However, for a slapstick comedy movie (from the director of Airplane and Naked Gun films, no less) this movie was entertaining enough. After all, keeping in mind the sort of audience the film would draw, the plot couldn't be too intricate and the characters couldn't be too developed. They also probably couldn't allow an extensive vocabulary for the dialogue of the film, hence the repetitious use of the word "dude" perhaps? Just kidding! (janice.98)
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