Ladybugs

Ladybugs is a bit of a change of pace for Rodney Dangerfield in this fairly wholesome family friendly film. However, in these times if the same movie was made today, it might get an R, or would be considered too controversial to be released. Ladybugs is a very warm, lighthearted, but at the same time has a lot of innuendo and raunchy humor that one would expect from a Rodney Dangerfield movie. Rodney Dangerfield plays a hard working family oriented man that has to coach a girls soccer team to appease his boss and get a promotion. There still are the one liners that are the price of admission for a Dangerfield movie, but the story flows well and the characters are well drawn out and easily likeable. This is in a lot of ways similar in quality to Meet Wally Sparks, but a bit more wholesome and in my opinion a better movie. Having said that, Ladybugs is still really funny and holds up pretty well.

This is going to sound crazy to most of you, but here it goes. Ladybugs is one of a handful of films that made me want to be a film maker. Seriously! I was 14 when I saw Ladybugs for the first time on video. Once I watched it, I watched it again. Something about the movie interested me to be a storyteller myself. The direction, the story, even the location of the film inspired me to start writing, acting, and begin taking film classes. Something about this feel good movie made me want to make movies myself. At the time, Jonathan Brandis just started acting himself. HE had done the Never Ending Story a few years before and was an up and coming actor. A month ago, Jonathan Brandis was found dead in his LA apartment. Though I never met the man, nor worked on any of his films, his "legacy" if you can call it that, had left a mark. His talents end on such a short note, it is unfair that his best work will never be seen. Even though he has left some good and bad movies behind, I recall most of his work as work of talent and joy.

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.

Ladybugs is a movie you could go past, without realizing how funny it really is. A small cinema release in December of 92, it had. When it came around to watching it, in late 95, I'm glad I zoomed in on it. As always in Rodney's Dangerfield's movies, like Robin Williams adds his own lines, he adds his own jokes, and they go off like firecrackers. I don't think there's anything I haven't found funny from Dangerfield. Here in one of his funniest comedies, a lighthearted one, compared to the normal ones he did, and that wasn't many, he coaches a hopeless soccer team of young girls, one of them happening to his beautiful boss's daughter, Kimberly. And if Chester (Dangerfield) produces a winning team he'll be put in for a promotion, so it's a bit of a..kissing. Rodney says a great one liner about balls that cracked me up. I never realized how funny this movie would be. Chester who's met a new woman, and vying for the acceptance of her son (this happens to all stepdads and mothers) he really needs this promotion. He cons the son (late heart throb Jonathan Brandis) a skilled soccer player into coaching this pathetic girls soccer team. Only one catch, the son must dress like a girl. At first, averse to the idea, he's soon in a dress and wig, and Martha is born. Another complication, Martha falls for Kimberly. Certain predicaments provide laughs, like when all the girls are invited back to Kimberly's place as they are skinny dipping, or when Martha's changing into a dress, in certain places, like female washrooms or dressing stalls, or even throttling a punching ball in front of stunned onlookers. Or when Kimberly shows up unannounced at Martha's, where Brandis is forever changing, as Rodney and his much better half return home. Even Rodney, who makes one hell of an ugly woman, has to pose as a female to get Martha out of Kimberly's house. Jackee' (Rodney's work colleague) is a hoot too, providing the laughs with after remarks aimed at Rodney. Nancy Parsons, the crazed coach of the other girl soccer team who are miles and miles better, very much resembles characteristics of her Ball breaker character from her Porky's days. Rodney sends a string of jokes her way that his boss finds equally amusing. Also the intercut scenes, with Brandis in a ice cream shop and Dangerfield in a bar telling the owners their problems, where their words are misinterpreted, Dangerfield's getting him kicked out with the funniest misunderstood line I've ever heard in my life. Ladybugs is a comedy treat for the whole family. I suggest zipping down to the DVD shop and hiring it, if you can find it. If your lucky to see a copy of it in the ex rental video section, buy it. Please! You won't be disappointed. Ladybugs, a whole movie of laughs, is runner up to Dangerfield's supreme hit, Back to School.

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.