The Benchwarmers (2006)

I was expecting The Benchwarmers to be an overall pretty bad unfunny movie, based on the reviews and average rating it has, with the possibility of occasionally succeeding in fleeting moments as is often the case with stupid comedies. In a sense, that's exactly what it amounted to although somehow the movie managed to be watchable even when many of the jokes were missing - to it's credit it's quite fast-paced (this contributes to the movie making even less sense, not that it matters).

The plot for The Benchwarmers has nothing original to offer - basically it's about three nerds (Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder) that play a bunch of baseball games against various teams of kids. The movie is never intended to be taken seriously so the abundance of clichés is forgivable. But where the movie fails is in the lack of original humour. Classics of the stupid comedy genre such as Zoolander and Dodgeball explored new ground whereas The Benchwarmers retreats to familiar styles of comedy with the occasional stroke of genius (or perhaps that should be idiocy).

Overall, I found the movie quite enjoyable. There were a few little parts I found quite hilarious and probably won't forget for quite some time to come. Even the standard reflective speech(es) near the end came across as sincere and not completely worthless. There are also a number of familiar faces (and cameos) which help move things along. Rob Schneider, David Spade, Nick Swardson and Jon Lovitz are all good in their parts whilst Jon Heder seems to be stuck in his Napolean Dynamite character. But unfortunately these are not enough to change the fact that this is not a good movie. It is decent enough entertainment for its running time though.