"This is ridiculous", someone helpfully points out midway through this juvenile rib-tickler. Small wonder - it's from Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore production company, caterers to the young and undemanding.

Though Sandler doesn't appear himself, he ensures that 12-year-old sides will be aching from the outset by handing the lead role to his old pal Rob Schneider.

And with David Spade donning a hilarious pudding-bowl wig and fake moustache and Jon Heder playing Napoleon Dynamite in a cycling helmet, The Benchwarmers is, quite literally, a comedy no-brainer.

The gruesome threesome are, respectively, geeky gardener Gus, videostore nerd Richie and paper-delivering dork Clark. Gus can't get his wife pregnant, Richie has an agoraphobic brother and Clark eats bogeys.

After rescuing young curlyhead Nelson from a bunch of baseballing bullies ("What are you, like, Children Of The Corn?"), they decide to fight for the rights of the weak and talentless by forming their own team.

Bankrolled by Nelson's gadget-crazy billionaire dad Mel (Jon Lovitz) and trained by baseball legend Reggie Jackson (which won't mean much to British audiences), the underdogs hit an improbable winning streak.

But their inexorable progress to the league final hits a major-league snag when Gus's darkest secret is exposed.

Even before half-time, every chapter in the schoolboy jokebook is brought into play: farting in faces, bogey munching, mailbox trashing, name calling, pratfalling, and a tasty selection of poo, wee and spit gags.

That still leaves plenty of time for bug-crushing, sunblock-eating, trouser-downing, egg-throwing, and a paranoid midget who lives in a cardboard castle in his mum's cellar. Noel Coward couldn't have done it better.

Not smart enough to be offensive, The Benchwarmers will – depending on your age - score a home run or make you want to run home.

Elliott Noble