Where to watch Ready to Rumble
2 1/2 Stars
Two dimwit sewage workers watch their hero, WCW wrestler Jimmy King, get screwed out of the World title by wrestler Diamond Dallas Page and evil WCW owner Titus Sinclair. They embark on a quest to help their hero win his title – and honor – back. Features cameos by lots of WCW wrestlers.
After my mom and dad divorced, she and I moved from my childhood home into a smaller place more in line with the income of a single working mother. A few months went by, and she decided to rent out a room to my distant cousin, a man named Troy, who was 12 years my senior. Troy became a very influential figure in my life during my early years between my teens and early twenties. I was devastated when he moved down to LA to pursue a career in entertainment, specifically voiceover acting. To make ends meet, he would work as an extra on feature films, and Ready to Rumble is a movie he appears in. He and I are estranged and have been for some time, but this movie is colored by my affection for a lost family member or friend.
Ready to Rumble is a sometimes amusing comedy centered on the colorful world of professional wrestling. The producers and (now defunct) WCW organization paired up on this production, and the movie is littered with appearances from the decades’ superstars. That doesn’t make the film any funnier, but at least it serves as a nostalgic reminder of the “83 weeks” era of the sport. Scott Cann, always hardworking, and David Arquette, always goofy, are perfectly cast as the airhead duo who are hornier than Bill & Tedd but less stoned than Harold & Kumar. The oddity of the bunch is Oliver Platt, the last person one thinks of when imagining a legendary wrestler, as the ‘King.’ Platt isn’t physically fit nor agile enough to even remotely pull off the movies’ wrestling sequences, relying on an obvious double for anything with choreography involved.
Despite the miscasting of Platt, who is fantastic in almost every other movie he is in, and the toned-down raunchiness of the story, Ready to Rumble is an easy viewing experience. Brian Robbins keeps the pace lively, although I wish there were more fantasy moments like the liquor store punch-up. The movie is good-looking and edited tightly. Ready to Rumble isn’t particularly memorable, but it holds sentimental value to me, and that’s why I’ll always appreciate it.
Directed by: Brian Robbins
Written by: Steven Brill
Starring: David Arquette, Oliver Platt, Scott Caan