Here we come to the close of our first annual Will Ferrell Sport Spoof Film Festival with Ferrell’s latest contribution to the genre, Semi-Pro. This movie was not near as good as Talladega Nights but it was slightly better than Blades of Glory (none of them come close to Anchorman…but I digress).
Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who uses the money earned from his hit Love Me Sexy (which has some awesome lyrics) to purchase the Flint Tropics, an basketball team in the American Basketball Association. He is not only the owner but also the coach and the power forward. Moon soon finds out that the ABA will merge with NBA and only four teams will make the transition. It’s now up to Moon and his ragtag team to show the NBA…blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. Not very imaginative but the movie does work…at times. The highlights being Will Arnett and Andrew Daly as the announcers for the Tropics and Matt Walsh as their referee/priest. As with Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights, a lot of the weight of the movie falls on Ferrell’s costar. Here we have Woody Harrelson who is decent enough as a straight man but for a movie like this I think he plays it a little too straight. That stark contrast really points out how stupid the movie really is. Which is fine. As I’ve said before, I like stupid movies. But I think a stupid movie should embrace it’s ridiculous nature and not try to ground itself with an overly sentimental and “real” story.
Well, folks, there we have it. Three days and three sports comedies from Will Ferrell. I truly hope we don’t have another entry into this series anytime soon.
[...] unopened? No. I think I need to get my money’s worth out of the rental so I watch it…again…for the third time. I will say that parts of the movie are starting to grow on me. But the [...]