"Play Dodgeball with Ben Stiller" is an American 4-minute live action short film from 2017 and a somewhat official little sequel to the original Dodgeball mentioned in the title of course. Writer and director is Rawson Marshall Thurber and the title already gives away too that Ben Stiller is back in character and he is far from alone in here. Actually he has his own team ready to go up against the team led by Vince Vaughn's character. So yeah, what can i say about this one? It is probably best early on when Stiller has the stage for himself and reflects on his characters' past and our inferiority. We are the internet people. Afterwards, it gets worse quickly. The characters are interesting, don't get me wrong, but what RMT does in terms of line and dialogue writing is really disappointing I must say. Quite a shame as everybody in here looks so interesting and colorful, but it simply isn't enough. The mannerisms are fine too and you see you have a bunch of talented actors in here who really deliver their characaters' shticks. But the moment they open their mouths, it all goes south. Still maybe good they made it from the charity perspective, but that is really the only reason and as this aspect probably does not play a role at all months or even years after its release, it's not enough for me to give this one a positive recommendation and it also does not get me curious about the original where I must say I am writing this review as somebody who has not seen it (yet). But I doubt I'd have liked this one more, had I see the full feature film. This one gets a thumbs-down. Style over substance and I don't recommend checking it out.
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Horst_In_Translation20 August 2018
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torontobjbird12 April 201910 Stars for Vince Vaughn baby! The best actor ever
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Citizenmars9 August 2022An old Omaze charity fundraiser where you can literally play dodgeball with either Ben Stiller's Purple Cobra's or Vince Vaughn's Average Joe's. Just a few callbacks to the original movie. Not really funny and only 4 mins. Forgettable and you really don't have to bother. If you've seen the original movie, you've seen this before.