Kicking and Screaming

Sitting through Will Ferrell's latest effort was harder than sitting through a Women's World Cup soccer match…or any soccer match, for that matter. Ferrell stars as Phil Weston, a Prius-pushing soccer dad who's tired of losing at everything to his ultra-competitive dad (Robert Duvall). So when Phil's father trades his own grandson to the worst team in the league, Phil sees it as an opportunity to coach the most uncoordinated sports team since the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The main problem is that neither the script nor the director allow Ferrell to unleash his juvenile humor on the soccer-playing tykes. Making things worse, Ferrell has as much on-screen chemistry with Duvall as Ben did with J.Lo, allowing Mike Ditka to walk away with the film's wittiest one-liners. Even the flick's most outstanding moments—Ferrell throws a tantrum at a coffee house, slams a kid to the turf—scarcely rival the filler laughs in movies like Anchorman and Old School. Combining the hyperactive comedian with a bunch of rugrats for 90 minutes may sound like a can't-miss, but Ferrell earns less respect in Kicking and Screaming than Rodney Dangerfield did in Ladybugs.