Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an early look at Will Ferrell's soccer coaching flick KICKING AND SCREAMING. And no, he's not playing the Rodney Dangerfield role... this isn't a remake of LADYBUGS. I know the majority of your may be disappointed by that news, but KICKING AND SCREAMING is its own movie. Sorry.
This review comes from the beautiful city of San Diego, which we all know means The Whale's Vagina in Spanish. I hope I agree with the below dude... I like laughing at Will Ferrell and it seems this guy and the rest of the audience he saw the film with does, too.
Oh, it’s so cliché now. Will Ferrell has made a funny movie.
But fuck it. Will Ferrell has made a funny movie - again.
Tonight, San Diego got a sneak preview screening of Kicking and Screaming and, despite my dour disposition and my hatred for soccer brought on by a childhood spent playing AYSO soccer ‘cuz of my father while all I cared about was the orange slices, the fruit punch, and how much time I could stay out of the line of fire by sitting my lazy ass on the bench… uh… where was I? Oh yeah, despite all that, I laughed my ass off.
Our nation’s top critics may not give this the greatest of all reviews, but you know who will LOVE this? A real audience of actual people…. And the lower level critics, too… they’ll hail it with lavish praises such as: “Will Ferrell Scores!” or “Will Ferrell Scores Again!” But, anyway, the audience… Yeah, even when the movie was at it’s most conventional, we all loved our Will. Our boy Will! He’s the champion! He makes funny stuff happen!
So, Will is pitted against three kinds of foes here:
Soccer Parents (ewwwwww)
Kids (awwww)
His father (ohhhhhhhh)
Robert Duvall ditches the gruff shtick to bring a little comedy into his life. With a young hot wife and penchant for karaoke, his character (Buck) coaches the most feared soccer team in the AYSO (or whatever it’s called in MovieLand) universe. Since a child, Will’s character, Phil (not Jill or Bill), has had his dad, essentially, put him on the bench. So, here’s Will… errr… Phil’s chance to get him back.
As the movie goes on, he faces off with the kids, the parents, the assistant coach (Da Bears’ own Mike Ditka), his father and, apparently, the most dangerous of ‘em all: coffee. You see, Phil’s a clean-living sort of bloke who gets sucked into the glorious world of caffeine, which soon gives Farrell a chance to show what happens when Frank the Tank’s “I’m Going Streaking!” intensity gets darker… much darker. No one is spared. And, after leading the team into a butcher shop with a chainsaw in order to get their star Italian players to a game on time, the slow-motion is a-rollin’ as the team of ragtags walk onto the field, bloodied, battered, and ready for a war… now is where we see what Phil has become.&n! bsp; A leader, A fighter, A winner. Or is he? Shit, man, that would be a spoiler. All I will say is that I was kind of surprised when the movie let me kind of root for his bastard prick of a dad for a while.
So, the downside of the movie: Will has his THING. And, judging by the audience, no one is sick of it yet. Me neither. But I can see how people would want a little somethin’ different. Will, don’t become Mr. Stiller. The other downside is really none of my concern: It’s that I can’t figure out if it’s for kids or adults. Maybe it’s a sort of combo-deal. But there was so much funny shit which could get it a PG-13, but it’s also a little soft and fuzzy to get the little ones (the actual kid soccer players) in there. So, I dunno. High-brow or low-brow, it made me laugh.
(Oh, but Mr. Editor, you and I both know that there are a couple things that could go… c’mon… tighten it up… tiiiiighten it up.)
Good stuff.
- Haverchuck
