Kicking & Screaming

KICKING & SCREAMING (2005) - May 11, 2005
Not that I was expecting much out of this movie, but it was still surprisingly bad. You'd think it wouldn't be possible to mess up a movie about a rag-tag group of kids in a sports team; all you really have to do is stick to the formula and you'll end up with a cheesy but enjoyable film. This movie's first (and fatal) mistake is that it takes all the emphasis off the kids, and puts it on the coach -- Will Ferrell, who is essentially playing Homer Simpson (good intentioned but ultimately an obnoxious jerk whose emotions swing wildly). The problem with Ferrell in this movie is that he is way over-the-top, and yet at the same time he seems to be restraining himself, not giving the full-out Will Ferrell persona we've come to know from SNL. That would be fine if he were trying to create an actual character, but that is far from the case. It's clear that the director (Jesse Dylan, who also directed How High and is a complete hack) simply rolled the cameras and let Ferrell go wild, so... why the restraint? What's the deal? The whole thing got pretty boring, and felt like it was at least two hours despite being only ninety minutes. Robert Duvall was fine, but he is clearly too good for a stupid movie like this. *1/2