Ready to Rumble 0 Stars (Out of 4) Reviewed by Mac VerStandig critic@moviereviews.org http://www.moviereviews.org April 9, 2000
---A copy of this review can be found at http://www.moviereviews.org/ready_to_rumble.htm ---
Allow me to begin this review by apologizing. If this critique seems to be below par in terms of quality, it is because I am confident that I am now a great deal dumber having seen Ready to Rumble. Perhaps this is the film's intent, to reduce educated persons to a level of idiocy, thus creating an even playing field for those hardcore wrestling fans who will see the movie because they have confidence that their sport is as real as any. Or perhaps, in the more likely scenario, the film has no real intent whatsoever other than to spew juvenile sight gags and jokes derived in the 4th grade boy's bathroom through a vehicle as troubled as the leaky septic truck that the production's protagonists drive.
Furthermore, I should let you know that this critique will contain no intellectual interpretation whatsoever as the film has no such depth to interpret. I dare even suggests that the filmmakers' concept of `highbrow' is probably someone whose face expands while on an acid trip. At one point one of the main characters ponders `if you only have one nut left, is it still your left nut?' That is just about as deep as things get. The film's heroes are Gordie Boggs (David Arquette) and Sean Dawkins (Scott Caan), two twenty-something wrestling fans obsessed with Jimmy `The King' King (Oliver Platt). To give you an idea of just how annoying this duo can be, if I were given a choice between spending an afternoon with them or watching a Sylvester Stallone marathon, I would grab some popcorn and make myself comfy.
The duo soon see their champion go down in the ring and set out on a mission to rescue him and return him to his previous glory. But there are a few problems: The king's castle is a stolen trailer, he owes child support, his wife has a certain disease which I am too much of a gentleman to discuss in this review and his thirst isn't for victory but rather beer. The film's morals are about as wholesome as those belonging to Charles Manson, the serial killer who is the punch line of the movie's only funny joke. The continuous preaching of violence as not only a means to an end but a positive trait as well is simply inexcusable. This is especially distressing given that the production targets a young and very impressionable teenage audience with several cameos by professional wrestlers and a PG-13 rating.
When in doubt about something, the movie's main characters ask themselves a simple question: `What would King do?' (Not to be mistaken with the much funnier question asked of Brian Boitano in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.) So what would the idiotic King do? Hmmm. . .have the brains to see a different movie.
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