LADYBUGS (1992) - Movie Review

Director: Sidney J. Furie
Starring: Rodney Dangerfield, Jackee Harry, Jonathan Brandis, Ilene Graff, Vinessa Shaw
Genre: Comedy, Sport
Writer: Curtis Burch
Runtime: 90 min
Rated: Rated PG-13 for sex related dialogue
Buy This Movie: Blu-ray (Amazon), DVD (Amazon), Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV

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Synopsis:

Chester Lee, a salesman gunning for a promotion, tries to butter up his boss by agreeing to coach his daughter's soccer team. One problem: the team is terrible, and it doesn't look as if they're going to have a winning season -- until Chester comes up with the novel idea of dressing up his fiancee's very athletic son in drag and having him join the team.

Review:

"Ladybugs" is a relic of its time, a type of movie that could never be made today, and it's not often I say this, but thank God ! The "woke" crowd would have a field day with this, tearing apart its many racial stereotypes, homophobic and misogynistic jokes, as well as the overall concept of a man dressing up his step son in drag and making him play in a girl's soccer team so he can get a promotion at his job.

There are so many things wrong with this movie on a conceptual level, yet Rodney Dangerfield is somehow still funny in the lead role, even if everything about his character is offensive and creepy. Low-brow humor has always been Dangerfield's brand of humor, and he is very good at it. His gags in this movie are more miss than hit, but when they do hit, you almost forget how bad this movie is. Almost.

Jackée Harry and Jonathan Brandis also help elevate this mess. Brandis is surprisingly effective and funny. He fully demonstrates his comedic abilities in a scene in which he's forced to run back and forth, in and out of drag. It's a scene that closely resembles the restaurant scene in the third act of "Mrs. Doubtfire", even though that movie came out a year later. It's pretty much the only somewhat competent bit of comedy in the entire movie.

The actual soccer sequences are pretty average, with little humor or excitement, perfectly aligned with every other sports movie you've ever seen, but even less believable. The team's players are almost invisible throughout the movie until the plot needs them to perform the usual underdog redemption routines. Strangely, the movie was marketed as a family-friendly comedy, which it definitely isn't, and this led to the movie flopping at the box-office, since it's clearly intended for teens and adults.

"Ladybugs" is a sports comedy that hasn't aged well, the kind of movie that used to get greenlit by coke-fueled Hollywood executives. The movie only exists for Dangerfield to crack jokes, and when that fails, and surely enough it does fail, the movie is left stranded. If child molestation jokes and questionable exploitation of teenagers doesn't make you cringe, and infantile humor is your idea of good comedy, then give this movie a try. If you're a Dangerfield fan, he's done much better, and so can you. For everyone else, steer clear of "Ladybugs".

SCORE: 5/10