“Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” pits Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller against each other once again. But since the two actors trade sides on the good and evil continuum from their roles in “Starsky and Hutch,” their comedic skills suffer.

Vaughn, playing protagonist Peter La Fleur, owns a dank, run-down gym that is in financial peril. Stiller, featuring a nasty ’80s mustache and mullet, is poised to buy out Vaughn’s business unless Vaughn and his gym’s peculiar but loyal members can raise $50,000 in a month. The solution: a national dodgeball tournament awarding a cash prize.

Vaughn’s rag-tag bunch, including 50-year-olds, high school losers and a guy who thinks he’s a pirate, sets off on a mission to get to the national dodgeball finals in Las Vegas. Despite a shameful run-in with a Girl Scout troupe in the regional qualifiers, the group makes it to Sin City with the help of their crazed, wheelchair-bound coach, Patches O’Houlihan, played by Rip Torn.

While the absurd quest does yield a decent amount of laughs, fans of Vaughn and Stiller have probably come to expect more from the duo.

Stiller’s innocent dopiness from his roles in “Starsky and Hutch” and “Zoolander” gave audiences more for their money than his work as the mindless meathead owner of Globo Gym in “Dodgeball.” Though his character, White Goodman, spits out hilarious one-liners in the heat of the dodgeball matches, Stiller’s moronic exchanges with Vaughn and others get old quickly and put a weight down the plot.

Vaughn’s character goes through a similarly un-engrossing self-discovery phase, but his unflappable support of his sad teammates at least fills in the humor gaps between matches.

Though there are warm, fuzzy moments between Vaughn and his teammates, “Dodgeball” isn’t for the squeamish. There are senseless moments that can make audience members quiver in their seats from revulsion. Close-ups of the fierce uni-brow and unholy teeth of a hideous Eastern European dodgeball queen and shots of Stiller as a shirtless 800-pound disgusting blob may be enough incentive to stop scarfing down your popcorn.

An attempted twist ending by writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber does little to help a storyline that isn’t much more than an excuse to make fun of the little-kids sport and some weirdos that play it as adults. But that excuse is decently funny in itself, and “Dodgeball” can provide a laughs-without-substance fix during the lazy days of summer.

Editor in Chief Nick Collins is a Medill senior.

He can be reached at [email protected].