Will Ferrell’s latest attempt to make us laugh falls short from every point of view. The story play is predictable, the characters seems to be unrelated and there are moments when they seem to be in another movie, the gags are old and predictable and, unfortunately, not even Will Ferrell seems to be capable to pull this one in the direction of comedy.

The movie’s intention is to be a sports movie spoof, but instead we get a sports movie wannabe, that tries to be funny by exploiting every cliché out there about the sports, movies, ‘70s and so on.

Will Ferrell plays the role of Jackie Moon, a one-time hit music wonder, who earned enough money to lose it in the American Basketball Association, by trying to manage the Flint Michigan Tropics.

But as he saw how to play basketball “one night on TV,” Jackie Moon believes that the manager role is not enough for his true greatness and he also becomes the power forward, publicity coordinator and half-time choreographer.

His team is heading towards disaster though, as the ABA will merge with the NBA. And here comes the movie’s sole catch: only the first four ABA teams will make the move to the NBA.

After Jackie Moon demands that the four best, not most financially successful, franchises make it into the NBA, “Semi-Pro’s” quest is ready to unfold.

Besides winning games, the semi-pro teams must bring in 2,000 paying customers and this soon emerges as another problem for Moon’s team.

First things, first. Moon will do everything in his power to push his team to the NBA.

He decides that it is time to bring in a real player and he will trade the team’s most precious asset, the washing machine, to enroll Ed Monix (Woody Harrelson), a former Celtics benchwarmer with a trick knee.

The movie tries to explain that there is a kind of love story between Monix and Lynn (Maura Tierney), the girl he left behind in Flint, but in fact all this looks like is that the movie makers needed a female role in all this madness.

Also, Monix will soon enter into a feud with Tropic’s star and only competent player, Coffee Black, played by Outkast’s singer Andre Benjamin.

As Monix is brought in the team, Moon heads on to solve another problem: how to bring 2,000 paying customers. So he decides to wrestle a bear in a cage as a pre-game draw.

The movie’s byline could be something like this: Moon is ready to do anything to follow his dream, even fight a bear.

In fact, most of the 86-minutes of the movie are dedicated to Moon’s promotional stunts for his team.

Written by Scot Armstrong (“Old School”) and directed by newcomer Kent Alterman, “Semi-Pro” will surely be a sensational movie on DVD for the boys’ nights out and it could also be a commercial success in theaters as the movie will attract the basketball fans. But next time, Ferrell could maybe change his “tune” as we know all his gags already.

“Semi-Pro” scored only 28 percent out of 100 with 61 reviews on RottenTomateos.com, while it has a rather good 45 points out of 100 on Metacritic.com, but with only 17 reviews.