Ladybugs

Before Will Ferrell started in a comedy about a kids soccer team there was a movie called Ladybugs. You have Rodney Dangerfield who plays Chester Lee. While trying to get a promotion Chester Lee agrees to coach the company's all girl soccer team. The only problem is he doesn't know anything about soccer. He ends up dressing up his fiancé's son who actually knows stuff about soccer to help the team.

You probably have seen some of other Rodney Dangerfield's movies like Back to School, Easy Money or Caddyshack. This movie is filled with all the great one liners and jokes that make Rodney Dangerfield so great. There are parts of this movie that are totally random but still funny. It seems like Rodney Dangerfield was trying to make a movie that would appeal to kids and be family friendly. Don't let the 4.7 rating fool you. This a funny movie with Rodney Dangerfield in it about soccer.

I consider Rodney Dangerfield to be the funniest man who has ever lived. He's the best stand-up comedian of all time. He's great. Out of all his movies, I like this one the best. CADDYSHACK is a classic too, but I watched it recently and I realized Rodney Dangerfield is hardly in it at all. The more Rodney Dangerfield, the better. LADYBUGS proves that. This movie is all about Rodney. If you are a fan of all of Rodney Dangerfield's one liners, this movie is for you. He keeps them coming throughout the whole hour and a half. In addition to Rodney's one liners, the movie also contains some great visual gags (the changing room scene is hilarious). LADYBUGS is easily one of the best movies not available on DVD.

If you have seen and disliked either Caddyshack or Back to School you'll truely hate this movie. But if your a fan of either of them this is a cult classic. Jonathan Brandis and Jackee are both great in this, and Rodney is at his best. Its charming, cute yet mixes enough dirty jokes in their to keep both preteens and teens interested. I highly recommend it to anyone.

It is so refreshing to see a movie with such vulgar jokes considering it is a kid's movie or at least movie where the adolescent is one of the main characters. The timing of the jokes is stellar and they are so politically incorrect and I never realized that I missed this type of humor. This would push so many buttons on any average PC folks.

In 2021 where someone can self-determine one's gender and a biologically-male athlete compete with biologically-female athletes based on their science-defying self-identity, the joke is now on our generation. This movie unintentionally became a prophetic little comedy

Yes I know I did not give perfect score, because honestly it is a sloppy movie, in terms of the craft of filmmaking.

Chester Lee (Rodney Dangerfield) is a successful salesman at Mullen Industries who's looking to get a promotion so he and his girlfriend Bess (Ilene Graff) can finally get married. Chester attempts to get on his boss Dave Mullen's good side when asking for a raise by praising the collection of trophies Mullen has acquired from the girls soccer team the Ladybugs which Mullen sponsors. When Chester lies about having once played soccer himself he finds himself offered the position of team coach which he thinks he could use to parlay his promotion but soon finds that the team mostly consists of uncoordinated misfits who have not played soccer before. With few options, Chester seeks help from his girlfriend's son Matthew (Johnathan Brandis) who's adept at soccer with Matthew reluctantly adopting the alias of Martha to give their team some help.

Ladybugs is a 1992 sports comedy starring notable comedian Rodney Dangerfield. The film came about from producers Andre Morgan and Albert S. Ruddy who sought to make an update on the formula established by The Bad News Bears falling in line with audience tastes of the 90s that had been shaped by the success of films such as Uncle Buck and Home Alone. Dangerfield hadn't headlined a film (at least live-action) since 1986's Back to School allegedly due to Dangerfield's prima donna behavior with a notable instance being his high profile rejection of Caddyshack II for Warner Bros. Despite his initial desire for it being the reason for its existence. Due to the nature of Dangerfield's comedic persona Paramount struggled with how exactly to market the film as while it was a broad comedy with prominent child characters, it still carried much of the raunchy material that Dangerfield was known for hence why the film was awarded a PG-13 rating. Made for $20 million, Ladybugs proved a financial failure opening in only fifth place and earning only $15 million before disappearing from theaters. Critics also panned the film and Ladybugs would mark the final mainstream vehicle for Dangerfield (aside from some direct-to-video films and supporting work in films such as Natural Born Killers and Little Nicky). Ladybugs is a strange movie not so much for what it is, but rather it's a strange mixture of Dangerfield's persona and a 90s formula family comedy that feels at odds with each other.

While critics did pan the film, some did admit to a degree that Dangerfield was able to be funny in the film and I'm inclined to agree. While Dangerfield is seldom that far from playing himself, nobody delivers one-liners as effectively and efficiently as he does as seen from the opening exchange between him and a truck driver that gave me a good laugh. The gone too soon Johanthan Brandis also gives a good performance as Matthew/Martha and he shows not only solid screen presence but also capable comic timing as a co-lead in the film. I also rather liked Jackée Harry's performance as Chester's assistant Julie who has great comedic back and forth with Dangerfield. Ladybugs seems like it has all the ingredients for a good comedy, but at the same time it also has a really uneasy mixture of edgy material mixed in with more conventional kids movie material. Curtis Burch is credited with screenwriting duties for Ladybugs and his most prominent credit outside of this one is the 1983 arcade sex comedy Joysticks and some jokes/sequences often feel like they're playing to that level including several jokes where characters mistake out of context dialogue for unseemly situations involving children. Because of this very uneasy mixture of family comedy setup paired with material that feels leftover from edgier examples of 1980s comedies, the movie has funny individual moments that are often balanced out by ones that are more cringey and uncomfortable.

Ladybugs is a movie that came out the wrong way at the right time because it's something of a timecapsule in how 80s comedy stalwarts struggled to adapt to the 90s (SNL alums such as Eddie Murphy, Dan Akyroyd, and Chevy Chase included). While the film is sporadically funny, it also feels like there's a misguided notion in transitioning Dangerfield into a role where he doesn't quite fit with material that seems confused about who it's exactly catering to.