Movie Review: Semi-Pro (2008)

Semi-Pro is a 2008 sports-comedy movie directed by Kent Alterman. It stars Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin, and Maura Tierney. As a 70s one-hit wonder singer, Jackie (Ferrell) wants to save his basketball league from sinking under the success of the NBA. If he fails, the NBA will merge with the already existing teams and get rid of his in Michigan. I wasn't really expecting to get much out of this film and honestly I was pretty right. This is an occasionally funny movie. There are several times where very sporadically I laughed, but that's about it. This story is quite dry and because the narrative is so boring, the moments that aren't funny do not deliver. It's not painful, but this movie is really just boring. Sure it made me laugh here and there, but the story isn't engaging whatsoever. Will Ferrell is his typical self in this movie. He's very over the top, but there's something about him as an actor that I just get used to after a while. Then there's Woody Harrelson who quite literally added nothing to this movie. He's the star of Natural Born Killers and in this movie he brings nothing to the screen. The writing behind this movie is really bad. In fact, even the jokes that hit aren't smart, it's the typical toilet joke and off-color humor that makes these kind of films work. Now I recently reviewed The Benchwarmers which was also a purposefully stupid sports comedy. What that film succeeded in was giving us a story that tied in well with the comedic elements. This movie has a completely separate story and the humor doens't weave itself well into it. Semi-Pro is not a bad looking movie. Yet it's not really well-scripted or interesting. So other than the occasional jokes and surprisingly attractive cinematography, this movie is fairly boring. Overall, Semi-Pro is bland, overwritten, and only offers sporadic and minimal laughs. 1.5 stars= C-

Movie Review: The Benchwarmers (2006)

The Benchwarmers was directed by Dennis Dugan (who directed Happy Gilmore) and stars Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Jon Heder. The movie is about these three guys who organize a baseball team for kids who are bullied and or not athletically talented. I saw this movie on Netflix and to be entirely honest, I liked it. This isn't a good movie at all and that's where critics largely dissed this film. I found it to be hilarious and I thought elements of the movie worked really well as a comedy. Is it actually a good film? No. I wouldn't even really consider this to be a 'film' as the acting, directing, and story telling are pretty much completely disregarded during this eighty-five minute runtime. One of the flaws in this film that actually did bother me was the editing. The fast-paced sequences are really choppy and that includes basic dialogue between characters. It's not consistent, but there are a few times (the first video store scene) where I found the editing to be overly distracting and quite the eye sore. There's also Jon Heder who is literally playing Napoleon Dynamite for the second time. In general I found this movie to be quite funny. It is a purposefully bad baseball flick and I loved it for what it was. Yes, the ending message doesn't make any sense. Advocating for bullying and yet still laughing at the "outcasts" of the movie doesn't go hand in hand. And yes, there are a lot of moments in The Benchwarmers that feel as though they've been borrowed from other films. That said, I cannot lie to readers and tell people I hated this film. I'm well aware of the eleven percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I think this one gets judged a bit too unfairly. Overall, The Benchwarmers works solely on being a hilarious baseball film with some great (yet so bad) characters and a really well used soundtrack. Two stars= B