For some reason I thought that “The Benchwarmers” was rated PG instead of PG-13. It was a mental error but one I think many people often make. I had seen the previews and commercials for this film for months and just got it in my head that it was a PG comedy aimed at the kids. While I watched this film last week, I was shocked at how low-brow, disgusting and inappropriate this film was for what I thought was its intended audience.

Children, and even some adults on occasion, have been known to laugh at booger and fart jokes. It’s what made “Ren and Stimpy” so popular. Where “The Benchwarmers” swings and misses is by the sheer volume of the gross humor, adding some projectile vomiting to the mix with some good, old-fashioned gay humor.

If you read my reviews regularly, you know that I don’t get offended by very much, but this movie, which seemed like an harmless little comedy, really rubbed me the wrong way. Looking back, I’m not sure that I would have felt all that differently had I known that it was rated PG-13.

Anyway, here’s the plot. Three losers, Clark (Jon Heder), an adult paperboy who is a frightened mama’s boy, Richie (David Spade), a dorky video store (they still have those?) clerk and Gus (Rob Schneider), a landscaper, defend some little nerds from some baseball playing bully. They challenge the bullies to a 3-against-9 baseball game and because Gus used to be a great baseball player, they win. Mel, a billionaire played by Jon Lovitz, stages a tournament where the three guys will take on all of the bullying baseball teams.

Lovitz does a decent job as Mel, but it is not one of his best performances. He was more animated as a voice on “The Critic.” Schneider was better than he was in the films he was asked to carry on his own, but he didn’t bring much to the table. Also, why is a happily married guy who owns his own landscaping company considered a loser? As for Spade and Heder, Spade gets in a few good lines towards the beginning and Heder brings his odd-voiced delivery to Clark. One has to start wondering if Heder (“Napoleon Dynamite”) has anything but a weird voice and delivery to offer though.

In addition to the three leads, there are cameos from jocks like Bill Romanowski, Sean Salisbury, Craig Kilborn and Dan Patrick as coaches of the bully teams and they are reduced to wedgie jokes. The one person who steals the show, much like he did in “Grandma’s Boy” earler this year, is Nick Swardson, who plays Richie’s agoraphobic brother, Howie. He is the ultimate odd ball loser in the movie and is laugh out loud funny in several scenes.

Those were the only laughs in the film.

If you are a parent considering taking your kids to this film, don’t. There are things you may have to explain to them that you shouldn’t have to. If you want a baseball movie about lovable losers, rent the original “Bad News Bears,” it may have a few un-PC lines, but it’s a heckuva lot funnier and more family-friendly than this film.

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