So, “Semi-Pro,” Will Ferrell’s ’70s basketball comedy didn’t do so well, right? Only $15 million at the box-office (sound the alarms of course, what in baby jesus’ name happened to Will Ferrell’s career, right? Someone start a hysterical intervention now).
So, yes, it’s probably not Ferrell’s best comedy, but so what. We’ll all live. He’ll certainly live to make another 10 films at least.
As you likely already know, Ferrell stars a hapless ABA owner/coach/star player who’s happy to have his mediocre team, the Michigan Tropics, stay that way as long as they’re sort of selling tickets and the team keeps his marginal, local celebrity status going. However, as the ABA begins to fold and merge with the NBA, as it did in the ’70s, the Tropics’ existence is threatened.
And let’s face it, there’s no real charcter motivation here to keep anything going; this is the most half-assed, tossed together Ferrell vehicle in recent memory. Most of it feels improved onset, and all of his delivery has a lazy, almost arrogant, we-can-do-no-wrong attitude to it.
However, it’s still largely amusing…with alcohol. Some elements of the film are disconcerting though. The usually funny Will Arnett is mostly unremarkable; Tim Meadows is grossly underused, and the Woody Harrelson/Maura Tierney subplot is just there for the chicks already in attendance for the fart jokes so it just becomes a diversion.
But there is some stupid funny and this is what we’re here for and Ferrell does continue to play a wonderful numbskull rather effectively (at least in moments). Even if some of the jokes feel recycled from “Anchorman,” another ’70s-era’d Ferrell comedy, there’s enough idiotic grade-school humor that will make you snort stupidly if you’ve had a pint or two. Unremarkable, but not totally without stupid/humor merit [ed. this is possibly the worst review you have ever written; are you drunk?]
Buzzed [C+], Sober [-C]
