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Ben Stiller sure is a good sport.
His role as the dorky Teddy is downright degrading. He gets caught in his zipper, an episode that brings him folkloric fame; his (mistaken) arrest for public rudeness is nationally televised; and the girl of his dreams endlessly teases him. He is the butt of most of this movie's outrageous and embarrassing jokes. A lesser, more vain actor would have turned down the script after reading to page 5, but Stiller stuck it out.
Stiller plays Ted, the hapless high-school geek who was lucky enough to be asked to the prom by Mary (Cameron Diaz, who herself is the butt of some of the jokes). The zipper incident ends their date before it can begin, and before we know it, 13 years have passed. Stiller talks to his old friend Dom and decides that he wants to look up good old Mary, who has moved to Miami.
Dom's friend Pat (Matt Dillon) is a private investigator who occasionally makes it down to Florida, so he agrees to look her up. When he sees Mary he falls for her at first sight, so hard that he burns his bridges and moves to Florida. Ted hears that Mary is ugly, fat, and crippled -- part of Pat's plan to keep the competition away -- but he still wants to see her after all these years. He too heads to Florida....
This movie was very funny, and that is the reason you should go see it. I'm sure the film had its
faults, but I hardly had time to take notice of them. Whether or not this type of humour is your
thing it is worth seeing regardless.