Kicking & Screaming

Here's the recipe for making a movie as bad as Kicking & Screaming. First, take every underdog-sports-movie cliché you can think of and liberally apply them to a little league soccer team. Next, virtually ignore the team members as characters, except to sprinkle the soundtrack with ethnic music every time an Asian or Italian kid is onscreen. Add a whiney, klutzy, infantile, insecure, dumb-as-a-post sitcom-egghead dad coach, and be sure to cast a shameless ham to play him--like, say, Will Ferrell. Fold in a famous tough-guy coach from an entirely different sport to play himself in a major supporting role, but first make sure he's an embarrassingly bad actor--hey, former Chicago Bears honcho Mike Ditka will do nicely. Beat these ingredients into a script driven by gimmicks (when Wimpy Dad drinks too much coffee, he turns into a raging jerk--ha, ha, ha!) and then bake for 95 minutes. Serve with stale popcorn. Not recommended. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include a 13-minute “making-of” featurette, 12 minutes of deleted scenes, a “From Rome to Hollywood” featurette about the two Italian child soccer prodigies (9 min.), a “Soccer Camp” featurette about the kids' two-week training session for the filming (8 min.) outtakes (9 min.), six minutes of alternate takes, a “Kickin' it with the Kids” featurette about the child actors (3 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a dud film.] (R. Blackwelder)