The Comebacks (Unrated) (DVD)

Fox Atomic's sports comedy The Comebacks made $13,349,927 in theaters last year. I do not know a single person who bought a ticket. Considering there were 1.3 million who went to the theater you'd think I'd have at least have a casual acquaintance someplace within that mix.

Don't get me wrong. I'm probably whining about nothing here, especially considering Fox's (presumably equally dreadful) Meet the Spartans made almost $19-million during its opening weekend. While I find it disturbing that anyone would actually think either one of these films was ever going to be funny, I find it even more disheartening that I had to sit in my living room and try and actually watch one of them, and this is exactly how I felt enduring The Comebacks.

This Airplane meets Scary Movie sports parody is pretty close to an abomination, the filmmakers throw everything they can think of at the screen at hope beyond hope that some of it even slightly sticks. The targets include everything from Rocky to The Gridiron Gang, Radio to Hoosiers and Remember the Titans to Stick It and just about everything else in-between. The result is that almost none of it is worthy of a giggle let alone a full-out belly laugh.

None of this should come as a surprise. Tom Brady was the director of The Hot Chick, while the cadre of writers on the picture are mostly known for television shows like "Reba," "Men Behaving Badly" and "Yes, Dear" as well as movies like Not Another Teen Movie. As for the cast, people seem to love comedian David Koechner but I've never really ever understood the fascination, while extremely unfunny cameo appearances from the likes of Will Arnett, Dax Shepard and Andy Dick are pretty much par for the course it seems nowadays.

If anything, the only truly funny material to be found on Fox's DVD release of The Comebacks come in the form of some of the picture's special features. They are a bizarre lot, including a ludicrously silly cheer-off between the stripper-like cheerleaders featured in the picture and a group of real ones shown briefly during the climactic championship game. Other bits include a strange karaoke session with the team's female place kicker and a booty-battle between Jermaine Williams and another one of the faux cheerleaders.

The reason these bits work? They're short, sometimes barely a minute long, and like the best late-night television skits they are over and done with long before they get the chance to be tiresome. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for this motion picture. It is bad, most of the time exceptionally so, and if I didn't have to watch it for work I doubt I'd been able to finish the darn thing.

My advice? Stop giving studios reasons to make these abominations and leave The Comebacks in the discount bin where they belong.