Here Comes The Boom (2012) * *

Directed by:  Frank Coraci

Starring:  Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler, Greg Germann, Joe Rogan

Scott Voss is a Boston schoolteacher who is playing out the string.    His claim to fame was a "Teacher Of The Year" award from 10 years ago and his only reason to come to work is to hit on the school's sexy nurse Bella (Hayek).    Later, at a staff meeting, he learns the school is working on a budget deficit and will be cutting the school's arts and music programs.     Scott's best friend Marty (Winkler) is a music teacher and will soon be out of a job due to the cuts, unless Scott can figure out how to raise $48,000 to keep the programs.  

Scott signs up to teach citizenship classes to a bunch of goofballs, but the paltry pay won't help the cause, so he decides after watching a UFC fight on TV that he could try his hand at mixed martial arts.   After all, even the loser gets paid pretty decent money in those fights, if you're willing to get your head beat in.     This is the setup for Here Comes The Boom, an uneven comedy mixing MMA with Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions.    That means at least once someone is going to get vomited on or have an attack of diarrhea.     The former happens, by the way.  

There is certainly a good movie to be made from this material, but it keeps distracting itself with unnecessary painful slapstick and gross-out humor.     I've grown quite weary of bodily functions gone amok in recent comedies.    Ever since the kid from American Pie accidentally drank someone else's semen, movie comedies have tried upping the ante with this stuff.     It's tired.    It's played out.   It's appealing to the lowest common denominator.     Since Kevin James co-wrote the script, he will have to take some blame for this.

The fight scenes have intrinsic interest because we want to see how an out-of-shape former collegiate wrestler like Scott would do in cage fighting.    His first fight ends with him being knocked out with one punch, but things get better as he trains with Nico, a Dutch former MMA fighter who attends Scott's citizenship classes.      Money begins pouring into the school's coffers and Scott becomes famous, mostly for throwing up accidentally on his opponent.     Scott's biggest strength appears to be his ability to take a licking and keep on ticking.     Hey, Rocky Marciano went 49-0 boxing this way in the 1950's.    

You know that Scott will soon find himself in "the big fight" with lots of money on the line.    You know that Bella will eventually fall for Scott because, otherwise, what's the point of her being in the movie?     Does he win?   Does a bear crap in the woods?     Kevin James is likable so we wince when we see him getting hammered and tied up in painful submission holds by his opponents.    We then get an obligatory scene of someone resetting his dislocated shoulder.  

Maybe Here Comes The Boom might've worked better if it were more serious or got its laughs from sources other than pratfalls and silly behavior.     Warrior (2011) was a very good film about MMA.    Here Comes The Boom doesn't have such lofty goals and is comfortable taking the low road.