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Chester Lee (Rodney Dangerfield) is a successful salesman at Mullen Industries who's looking to get a promotion so he and his girlfriend Bess (Ilene Graff) can finally get married. Chester attempts to get on his boss Dave Mullen's good side when asking for a raise by praising the collection of trophies Mullen has acquired from the girls soccer team the Ladybugs which Mullen sponsors. When Chester lies about having once played soccer himself he finds himself offered the position of team coach which he thinks he could use to parlay his promotion but soon finds that the team mostly consists of uncoordinated misfits who have not played soccer before. With few options, Chester seeks help from his girlfriend's son Matthew (Johnathan Brandis) who's adept at soccer with Matthew reluctantly adopting the alias of Martha to give their team some help.

Ladybugs is a 1992 sports comedy starring notable comedian Rodney Dangerfield. The film came about from producers Andre Morgan and Albert S. Ruddy who sought to make an update on the formula established by The Bad News Bears falling in line with audience tastes of the 90s that had been shaped by the success of films such as Uncle Buck and Home Alone. Dangerfield hadn't headlined a film (at least live-action) since 1986's Back to School allegedly due to Dangerfield's prima donna behavior with a notable instance being his high profile rejection of Caddyshack II for Warner Bros. Despite his initial desire for it being the reason for its existence. Due to the nature of Dangerfield's comedic persona Paramount struggled with how exactly to market the film as while it was a broad comedy with prominent child characters, it still carried much of the raunchy material that Dangerfield was known for hence why the film was awarded a PG-13 rating. Made for $20 million, Ladybugs proved a financial failure opening in only fifth place and earning only $15 million before disappearing from theaters. Critics also panned the film wand Ladybugs would mark the final mainstream vehicle for Dangerfield (aside from some direct-to-video films and supporting work in films such as Natural Born Killers and Little Nicky). Ladybugs is a strange movie not so much for what it is, but rather it's a strange mixture of Dangerfield's persona and a 90s formula family comedy that feels at odds with each other.

While critics did pan the film, some did admit to a degree that Dangerfield was able to be funny in the film and I'm inclined to agree. While Dangerfield is seldom that far from playing himself, nobody delivers one-liners as effectively and efficiently as he does as seen from the opening exchange between him and a truck driver that gave me a good laugh. The gone too soon Johanthan Brandis also gives a good performance as Matthew/Martha and he shows not only solid screen presence but also capable comic timing as a co-lead in the film. I also rather liked Jackée Harry's performance as Chester's assistant Julie who has great comedic back and forth with Dangerfield. Ladybugs seems like it has all the ingredients for a good comedy, but at the same time it also has a really uneasy mixture of edgy material mixed in with more conventional kids movie material. Curtis Burch is credited with screenwriting duties for Ladybugs and his most prominent credit outside of this one is the 1983 arcade sex comedy Joysticks and some jokes/sequences often feel like they're playing to that level including several jokes where characters mistake out of context dialogue for unseemly situations involving children. Because of this very uneasy mixture of family comedy setup paired with material that feels leftover from edgier examples of 1980s comedies, the movie has funny individual moments that are often balanced out by ones that are more cringey and uncomfortable.

Ladybugs is a movie that came out the wrong way at the right time because it's something of a timecapsule in how 80s comedy stalwarts struggled to adapt to the 90s (SNL alums such as Eddie Murphy, Dan Akyroyd, and Chevy Chase included). While the film is sporadically funny, it also feels like there's a misguided notion in transitioning Dangerfield into a role where he doesn't quite fit with material that seems confused about who it's exactly catering to.