The Benchwarmers

Three grown-up nerds (Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder) decide to defend the honor of a new crop of nerds by challenging baseball-field bullies to a tournament. Dennis Dugan, director of Happy Gilmore, revels in brain-dead comedy, and this is his best effort since Adam Sandler took that wicked golf swing. Heder is a complete waste as the town man-child, but Schneider does a good straight guy while Spade is pretty funny sporting a bowl cut and pencil moustache. The film’s biggest laughs come from supporting characters, like the “little man” who lives in his mother’s basement cowering in his peanut-butter fort, and the albino who thinks the sun is a monster. Jon Lovitz scores big laughs as a billionaire nerd who adorns his home with Star Wars memorabilia and robots. This is major lowbrow humor—and it’s not for everybody.