Semi-Pro

No more can filmmakers get instant laughs with Pong, ascots, eight-tracks and lava lamps. It's just no longer funny. And for 95 percent of its running time, neither is Semi-Pro.

The semifunny Semi-Pro is amiable enough, but you never feel there's much at stake.

Semi-Pro isn't painful, but it's a very minor credit for everyone involved.

Judging from this low-scoring sports comedy about the mystique of men with balls, Will Ferrell needs to call a time-out from belly baring to refocus his fan-favorite game of playing clueless male doofuses.

You take the Will Ferrell formula and you plug it in, but somehow it just feels kind of uninspired and flat.

Never quite reaches its maximum potential in spoofing an era and attitude long gone from professional sports.

"Pro" proves to be more miss than hit, with some spotty comedic moments and a story that is really nothing more than spare parts of much better films in the same genre.

Semi-Pro is, to put it charitably, semi-good. And I'm sure it will make a load of money.

Semi-Pro has a lot of problems, not the least of which is that it is simply bone lazy in terms of plot development, story and pretty much everything else.