Kicking and Screaming

Will Ferrell is probably the funniest man in movies right now, there's no doubt about that, so when someone pitches a movie idea with him in mind, it just sounds funny, it should be funny, and it usually ends up funny, but him, not the entire movie, and that's the problem with Kicking and Screaming, which also suffers extra with young adults like myself for being a children's movie. A shame, but I'm declaring this Will's worst movie since he gained superstar status after little but hillarious parts in hit comedies like the Austin Powers movies, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Zoolander, to his super break out in the classic and arguable the best comedy ever, Old School, where he played Frank "The Tank" Ricard.

Elf proved a few years ago that Will could also do children's movies, and I really liked it, but the ridiculousness of the character was what made it funny, and so I left liking it but it just wasn't for me. Now the same happens with Kicking and Screaming, with Will Ferrell as a kid's team soccer coach being funny, but the movie, full of cliches and a done a million times story with little to nothing to add to the genre, dissapoints.

Will plays Phil Weston, a vitamine salesman who's been beaten and beaten once again by his father Buck (Robert Duvall) in everything he's done all his life, and in every aspect too, not only sports (Buck's younger son [and Phil's little brother] Bucky was born the same day, but a few minutes before, than Phil's son Sam). Always brought down by his father, Phil starts coaching his son's soccer team The Tigers, the worst team in the league, as a way to help at first, but then competition gets to him and he'll do anything he can to beat his dad's team (the best in the league) The Gladiator, thanks in part to Mike Ditka and coffee.

Since Phil's team is a disaster, of course the kids are a big part of that, and so we have some of the most pathetic looking kids ever ranging for a funny kid that has down syndrome, to a very small asian kid with glasses (whose parents are lesbians) to the big fat kid that's going to be worthless until the ending when he gets to kick some kid's butts. The only good players in the team are two Italian brothers that Mike Ditka recruits.
Oh yeah, Mike Ditka, he's the funniest character in the movie after Will's. Ditka plays himself, living next to Buck's house and always messing with him, and so when Phil asks him to be his assistant coach, Mike laughs and shows him his Superbowl ring but then accepts after learning that he would be messing with Buck.

And so I didn't like it, maybe because the soccer scenes suck, though I guess that's something that never works in movies, they don't come out believable on screen, and it's way worse when it's done with children (the only believable soccer movie ever was Victory), or maybe because Phil's addiction to coffee felt a way too disconnected from the movie subplot (despite featuring Freaks & Geeks' Martin Starr delivering a few lines), but I just couldn't get myself to like it. I don't know, maybe it was just too cute for me after watching Unleashed a few days before.