PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 5/13/05)


Here are two words to describe Kicking and Screaming: Will Ferrell. Those of us who find his nerdball kid-in-a-candy-store fits a riot will have fun. The rest won't. Ferrell may wear out his welcome after too many paint-by-number vehicles like this one, but for now, he's still fresh and endearing.

Naturally this is more or less The Bad News Bears, as will be another release this year to be titled The Bad News Bears. Like the formula for Animal House, the Bears set-up is now a comedy tent pole to be driven into the ground forever and ever, Amen. There's also a lot of “parental figure as walking nightmare” jokes in this one a la Meet the Parents. Ferrell becomes a Little League soccer coach to beat the team his bully of a father (Robert Duvall) coaches. Unfortunately, here, those particular jokes aren't at all funny—they're rather off putting really—and you might end up wincing to see Duvall in such cruddy role.

There's also Mike Ditka, in case you know or care who that is. But the point of this whole exercise is to let Ferrell get nuts on the sidelines like the most asinine of parents are wont to do, and that's when the audience has a blast. Because the comedian's style is so out there, the writers had to tack in a subplot about his character becoming progressively addicted to coffee in ridiculous amounts. That way, all two or three of those soccer moms and dads throughout the land who have never seen Will Ferrell perform won't be left wondering, “What is with this peculiar man's behavior?”

Kicking and Screaming is relatively harmless fun, although it does make you wish Ferrell would do more risky, rule-bending work like Anchorman. Enough with the generic star vehicles man, write thee a screenplay again!

—Kevin Allison