Not even Semi-Funny

I'm pretty sure this is the same gym from "Bring it on". It's sad that I know that, huh.



Will Ferrell is a funny fellow, but that humor has not been making it into his last few films. This latest debacle “Semi-Pro” is the story of Jackie Moon, the owner on a small basketball team that must win and fill seats to survive a merging of leagues. Part of the problem with this film is that I never really liked the lead character, played by Ferrell. He was annoying, simply a source of wisecracks not someone that we want to see succeed.

We all know that Ferrell is funny, we all know that he can think of random things that will give us a chuckle, but without a story it gets to be grating. It got to the point where his antics only frustrated me because I wanted the movie to end. The love story involving Woody Harrelson was not believable and poorly written.

Now if you haven’t seen the film and want to be surprised, skip the rest of this paragraph. In all honesty though, what kind of person wants to enjoy the suspense of a Will Ferrell sports movie. Let’s all make fun of them, since they aren’t reading this anymore. (insert insult here.) Okay, back to this poor movie. About ¾ of the way through the film we are informed that the main goal of the characters has been lost without them even trying. We find out even if they fill enough seats and win enough games, they won’t survive the merger. This was ridiculous, there was literally no reason to keep watching. They even admit that there is no reason to keep playing. Horrible story telling, which is in line with the rest of the script.

Will Ferrell needs to step it up in the next few films or he is sure to go the way of Chris Kattan. Clearly this formula of out of his element, sports film is not suiting him anymore. I look forward to seeing him think outside the box and develop something really inventive. Until then, this movie goes in the “watch it if it came on TBS and your only other options were America’s Top Model and MASH” category.