|
Movie Review - Semi-Pro (2008)
|
|
|
|
|
(What this rating means)
|
|
| |
|
| Director: |
Kent Alterman |
| Starring: |
Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin, Maura Tierney, and Will Arnett |
| Rated: |
R (for language and some sexual content) |
| Length: |
90 minutes |
| Genre: |
Comedy |
| Tagline: |
The Greatest Fro on Earth |
| Studio: |
New Line Cinema |
| Website: |
Semi-Pro |
| Release: |
February 29, 2008 |
|
PLOT
|
It's 1976 and the ABA - a fast-paced, flashy alternative to the NBA - is on its last legs. The two leagues are merging and only four of the ABA teams will survive.
Jackie Moon (Ferrell) is the owner-coach-player of the worst team in the league - the Flint Michigan Tropics - and he's not quite ready to welcome the demise of his
dream of owning a basketball team. With the hope of survival teetering in the balance, Moon makes the necessary moves to turn his team into a winner - he trades a washing
machine for Woody Harrelson, a former NBA bench rider. Will the Tropics turn their fortunes around and put a winning product on the court, or will it be time for
the players to pull out the classifieds? A typical Will Ferrell sports spoof ensues.
|
|
JOHNNY'S TAKE
|
Semi-Pro? More like Semi-Entertaining! *takes a bow* Thank you, thank you. I'm sure no other reviews have employed such a pun...
*ahem*
I must thank Will Ferrell for making his movies the absolute easiest in the world to review. Do you like the guy? If so then you'll be entertained. Do you hate the guy? Yes? Then
prepare to be disgusted and spend the rest of the evening kicking yourself for wasting your time and money. Or, you know, you could just use common sense and skip the movie.
I think Chris Kattan has all the talent of this bottle of Coconut Lime Verbena hand lotion sitting on my desk, and that's why you'll never see me pay to go to one of his films.
I suggest you use similar good judgment. That being said, I could end the review right now and you'd truly be equipped with all the necessary information. But we all know I
can't help but add just a wee bit more verbiage to this puppy...
Will Ferrell is, if anything, flabby. But he's also consistent. He's eerily similar to Uncle Larry's Christmas-time visit - loud, annoying, over-the-top, and sporadically
funny. With dashes of awkward discomfort mixed in for flavor. Aside from his subdued performance in Stranger Than Fiction, Ferrell's
exhibited less acting range than Keanu Reeves. But hey, the guy has legions of fans because of it. He knows his target audience, and he mostly delivers what they want.
As for me, I enjoyed the two-minute trailers of Anchorman and Talladega Nights more than the full-length movies, but there are folks out there, some of my friends
included, who can handle nearly two hours of that crap. There are still surprises in this thing I like to refer to as life, but we, as a society, should be at the point where
no one walks into a Will Ferrell movie and then walks out shocked at what they just witnessed.
Come on, now, what do you really expect from a movie that highlights an attempt to make somebody throw up for the first time in his life? I can assure you that the term "highbrow comedy"
should appear nowhere in that description. If you have never thrown up before then it just might happen during a slow motion sequence that focuses on Ferrell's hairy, doughy,
pasty white thighs. I haven't gagged that much since accidentally seeing Kathy Bates' nude scene in About Schmidt. I don't know why Ferrell and his directors continue
to subject us to lingering shots of various parts of his hairy, non-toned body, but I'm afraid it's not going away anytime soon. Buy your tickets at your own risk.
We need to just go ahead and give Ferrell his own genre. I'm thinking something along the lines of the "Will Ferrell Makes Another Quasi-Parody of a Sport That Is 1/3rd Funny,
1/3rd Stupid, and 1/3rd Disgusting" genre. That sounds about right, wouldn't you say? After all, that's the exact formula that's applied here - there are some laugh-out-loud
moments, a smattering of eye-rolling stupidity, and a few unnecessarily gratuitous scenes and language that are included specifically to get an R rating. See, the studio thinks
that if you give a Will Ferrell movie an R rating then drunken frat boys will assume there must be some nudity, thus luring them to the theater. It's all very juvenile.
And honestly, it makes no sense because it's the pre-driving teens that would be most likely to spend daddy's expendable income on tickets. Could someone please tell me how
the movie was improved due to the inclusion of the Harrelson/Tierney sex scene? Or, I beg of you, describe how the over-the-top vulgarity added to the laugh-factor. Oh, you
can't? That's what I thought. There's no situation in the real world where I care to hear guys tell other guys to perform certain actions on a particular sexual organ, so why
would I want to pay money to hear that said multiple times in a movie? Grow up.
Anyway, back to the Ferrell formula, the bottom line is he's replaced NASCAR and ice skates with the ABA and short shorts and then proceeded to act like, well, Will Ferrell.
I don't know what else you want me to say. I laughed, I cringed, I shook my head, and I wanted to throw up. A Will Ferrell movie really writes its own review.
|
|
ODDS & ENDS
|
- From 1967 to 1976, the ABA (American Basketball Association) emphasized flair and showmanship in an effort to compete with the NBA.
- The Flint Tropics were NOT an actual ABA team.
- Julius "Dr. J" Erving was the ABA's most well-known player, moving on to a Hall of Fame NBA career.
- The three-point shot and slam dunk contest were inventions of the ABA.
- Will Ferrell was in Melinda and Melinda with Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.
|
|
MAMA'S APPROVAL
|
Yeah right. This would meet mama's approval like a night at The Pony Club. "F" bombs, G-d**ns, and other profanities are dropped, including quite a bit of crude sexual
dialogue. There's a scene where Maura Tierney's boyfriend sees her having sex with Woody Harrelson. Though no nudity is shown, Tierney's boyfriend's actions are quite
disturbing and disgusting.
|
|
TRAILER COMPARISON
|
No big surprises here. It's not as if the trailer attempts to paint this as an intellectual exposé on the foibles that led to the collapse of the ABA and the lingering lifetime
effects on its players.
|
|
THE GIST
|
If you love Will Ferrell and you aren't easily offended then you'll likely enjoy the film. Otherwise, wait and catch it when it's airing on the USA channel in a few months.
|
|
