Warning: the first 27 minutes of “Dodgeball” are unwatchable. I came very close to just turning the damned thing off. The main problem is Vince Vaughan. Great in other films. Here: not funny. The character is written for a Bill Murray type (early Bill Murray) and Vaughan plays it like — like nothing. He does nothing with it. It’s as if he’s just reading lines off a page for the first time. He should hang his head in shame. About 27 minutes in, though, is the first game of dodgeball. Then Rip Torn shows up. And then you’ve got a movie. The remaining hour is fun and Ann & I laughed a few times. I got really angry, though, when I went to look at some of the extra DVD features. There is an “alternative ending.” (WARNING: SPOILERS) The alternative ending is really just Ben Stiller’s team beating Vaughan’s team. If you remember, you *think* this is what happens, but then you discover he stepped over the line and that’s when the “use the force” blindfolded sudden death thing happens. Well, in this alternative ending, Stiller just knocks Vaughan out, we see Stiller’s team celebrating and Vaughan’s team pouting and we fade to black. What the heck is that? We wonder. So we watch the scene again with the commentary track. The director comes on to whine that this is how he wanted to end the movie — kind’ve a shocking Python-esque screw you to convention — but the studio wouldn’t let him. Then he goes on to babble about how this is the truest, most artistic ending. But as a first time director, he didn’t have the clout to have final cut. And he even “left the film” for a week until Ben Stiller had to beg him to come back. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS FUCKING GUY!?!?!? For DODGEBALL!!!! He wanted to give a sour ending to a light, fluffy film and then walked off the set screaming about art?!?!? There is no art in Dodgeball, you can rest assured. It is an okay-funny-I-guess-I’ll-watch-it-on-the-plane movie and everybody involved looks like their having fun. All but this cocksucker director who is looking for some hard truths to give his film some integrity. To which I say: fuck you.