This beloved movie has irritated me for years. I'd seen it many years ago, before knowing just how popular it is and didn't really have much of an opinion on it one way or another.
However, within the past year, I've twice viewed it and I now feel compelled to say that the fact that it has such a favourable score on this site, along with dozens of glowing reviews, is absolutely baffling to me.
I have no idea how this movie can appeal to anyone on any level. The fact that it's managed to ensnare its fair share of people who aren't even really into baseball is even more disturbing because I always figured that if you're fiercely devoted to a sport, you can make yourself like any movie that paints it in such a positive and mystical light.
Many reviews on this site state that this movie isn't really about baseball, but is instead about deeper things such as family, regret and what it means to live. I can see how the movie may ATTEMPT to be about these things, but it fails quite miserably.
I should also point out that this movie is based on an extremely poorly written book. If you don't believe me, pick it up and try to force yourself to read the entire thing - it's quite a painful experience. The movie obviously changes some things from the book as all movie adaptations of novels do but it certainly doesn't make things any better. The plot is still a lazily slapped-together mash of events that are either cheesy and bland beyond belief or simply nonsensical (and quite often, both at once!)
I've seen movies in which a character is compelled to do something fairly out of the ordinary and is criticized for it by his peers before (in this case, a mysterious voice give Kinsella extremely vague instructions that he decides he MUST follow) but in those films and stories, the character actually winds up ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING in the end. Building a baseball field so that the spirits of a bunch of deceased baseball players who played more than enough of the game in their respective lifetimes can come together and play again strikes me as utterly pointless. True, as James Earl Jones' character puts it in the end, "the people will come without knowing why and they'll pay twenty dollars each or more just to see" - the final shot proves that this is what's happening and it does solve the problem of Kinsella going bankrupt. However, the whole reason he's broke is because he built the field on his farmland, thusly destroying his livelihood! That's pretty circular, doncha think? Pointless? What has he really gained in the end? A chance to play catch with his father? I realize how that can be a meaningful thing but I question whether or not that justifies the entire movie.
As far as I can tell, nothing justifies pretty much any of the paranormal crap that goes on in this film. I know there are tons of movies with magic and over the top stuff that rely on the suspension of belief - hell, a lot of my favourite movies are quite fantastical and weird - but all that stuff seems extremely out of place in this movie. There's no explanation for any of the stuff that occurs and everything happens so haphazardly that it comes across as though the author just made it all up as he went along. Example: on his insane quest across the country for Jones' character, the reclusive author (in the book he was J.D. Sallinger - I have no idea why the filmmakers saw fit to change that), Kinsella suddenly, without warning, warps through time to the early seventies where he meets a former baseball player who is now an aged doctor. Kinsella isn't surprised in the least by this, I might add -Costner wanders through the events of the movie with this terrible, spaced-out look but never shows any range of emotion beyond that - and he asks the doctor to accompany him back to Iowa. (which reminds me - "Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa." how can you hear lines like that and not vomit?) The doctor declines. Not to worry, because on the drive back, Kinsella inexplicably encounters another incarnation of the doctor in the present timeline (in which he would be quite dead) as a much younger man, practically a boy, and picks him and takes him back to the farm where he will perform the immeasurably important and earth-shatteringly significant act of playing baseball with a bunch of other dead guys. (and don't tell me he saves the girl's life - he wacks her on the back!)
I could go on and on, taking this movie down scene by scene but I won't bother. I will, however, point out that the filmmakers did a remarkable job of representing Kinsella's wife as she is portrayed in the book - that is, an insepid halfwit who stands by her husband's lunatic actions and is more effective as background colour in scenes than as a character. The added scene depicting the PTA meeting must be the filmmakers' attempt to somewhat animate her character but, as it has pretty much nothing to do with the rest of the plot, it just comes across as annoying. I realize that in that scene they mention the reclusive author but that only works since the author's identity was changed from that in the book in the first place.
I applaud anyone who is passionately involved with a sport on some level - it's a great feeling and I think that sports can mean a lot more than just a bunch of guys playing a meaningless "game". That said, I feel anyone who's really into baseball should be angry that this movie exists. If anyone made a movie this bad about a sport I love, I'd be beyond horrified.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I know there are scores of you who will disagree with me. But I'm yet to read a review on this site at least, where anyone comes even close to describing the merits of this movie. I hate to say it, but a lot of people come across as though they've simply been brainwashed either by an obsessive love for baseball (which probably isn't a bad thing on its own) or by the fact that the movie tries very hard to be emotionally compelling or perhaps a mixture of both.
As far as sappy movies go, this isn't the worst, but the fact that it's sappy as hell with a whole bunch of meaningless, paranormal garbage thrown in definitely makes it the most annoying. Anyone who says that they were "moved" by this movie would probably go nuts over the book, what with all the horrible clichés, awful dialogue and bland, uninspired imagery that couldn't be crammed into the movie.
Avoid at all costs unless the thought of ghost baseball players coming to life to stand around, scratch themselves and spit all over again makes you tear up. This movie's popularity will forever shake my faith in humankind.
However, within the past year, I've twice viewed it and I now feel compelled to say that the fact that it has such a favourable score on this site, along with dozens of glowing reviews, is absolutely baffling to me.
I have no idea how this movie can appeal to anyone on any level. The fact that it's managed to ensnare its fair share of people who aren't even really into baseball is even more disturbing because I always figured that if you're fiercely devoted to a sport, you can make yourself like any movie that paints it in such a positive and mystical light.
Many reviews on this site state that this movie isn't really about baseball, but is instead about deeper things such as family, regret and what it means to live. I can see how the movie may ATTEMPT to be about these things, but it fails quite miserably.
I should also point out that this movie is based on an extremely poorly written book. If you don't believe me, pick it up and try to force yourself to read the entire thing - it's quite a painful experience. The movie obviously changes some things from the book as all movie adaptations of novels do but it certainly doesn't make things any better. The plot is still a lazily slapped-together mash of events that are either cheesy and bland beyond belief or simply nonsensical (and quite often, both at once!)
I've seen movies in which a character is compelled to do something fairly out of the ordinary and is criticized for it by his peers before (in this case, a mysterious voice give Kinsella extremely vague instructions that he decides he MUST follow) but in those films and stories, the character actually winds up ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING in the end. Building a baseball field so that the spirits of a bunch of deceased baseball players who played more than enough of the game in their respective lifetimes can come together and play again strikes me as utterly pointless. True, as James Earl Jones' character puts it in the end, "the people will come without knowing why and they'll pay twenty dollars each or more just to see" - the final shot proves that this is what's happening and it does solve the problem of Kinsella going bankrupt. However, the whole reason he's broke is because he built the field on his farmland, thusly destroying his livelihood! That's pretty circular, doncha think? Pointless? What has he really gained in the end? A chance to play catch with his father? I realize how that can be a meaningful thing but I question whether or not that justifies the entire movie.
As far as I can tell, nothing justifies pretty much any of the paranormal crap that goes on in this film. I know there are tons of movies with magic and over the top stuff that rely on the suspension of belief - hell, a lot of my favourite movies are quite fantastical and weird - but all that stuff seems extremely out of place in this movie. There's no explanation for any of the stuff that occurs and everything happens so haphazardly that it comes across as though the author just made it all up as he went along. Example: on his insane quest across the country for Jones' character, the reclusive author (in the book he was J.D. Sallinger - I have no idea why the filmmakers saw fit to change that), Kinsella suddenly, without warning, warps through time to the early seventies where he meets a former baseball player who is now an aged doctor. Kinsella isn't surprised in the least by this, I might add -Costner wanders through the events of the movie with this terrible, spaced-out look but never shows any range of emotion beyond that - and he asks the doctor to accompany him back to Iowa. (which reminds me - "Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa." how can you hear lines like that and not vomit?) The doctor declines. Not to worry, because on the drive back, Kinsella inexplicably encounters another incarnation of the doctor in the present timeline (in which he would be quite dead) as a much younger man, practically a boy, and picks him and takes him back to the farm where he will perform the immeasurably important and earth-shatteringly significant act of playing baseball with a bunch of other dead guys. (and don't tell me he saves the girl's life - he wacks her on the back!)
I could go on and on, taking this movie down scene by scene but I won't bother. I will, however, point out that the filmmakers did a remarkable job of representing Kinsella's wife as she is portrayed in the book - that is, an insepid halfwit who stands by her husband's lunatic actions and is more effective as background colour in scenes than as a character. The added scene depicting the PTA meeting must be the filmmakers' attempt to somewhat animate her character but, as it has pretty much nothing to do with the rest of the plot, it just comes across as annoying. I realize that in that scene they mention the reclusive author but that only works since the author's identity was changed from that in the book in the first place.
I applaud anyone who is passionately involved with a sport on some level - it's a great feeling and I think that sports can mean a lot more than just a bunch of guys playing a meaningless "game". That said, I feel anyone who's really into baseball should be angry that this movie exists. If anyone made a movie this bad about a sport I love, I'd be beyond horrified.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I know there are scores of you who will disagree with me. But I'm yet to read a review on this site at least, where anyone comes even close to describing the merits of this movie. I hate to say it, but a lot of people come across as though they've simply been brainwashed either by an obsessive love for baseball (which probably isn't a bad thing on its own) or by the fact that the movie tries very hard to be emotionally compelling or perhaps a mixture of both.
As far as sappy movies go, this isn't the worst, but the fact that it's sappy as hell with a whole bunch of meaningless, paranormal garbage thrown in definitely makes it the most annoying. Anyone who says that they were "moved" by this movie would probably go nuts over the book, what with all the horrible clichés, awful dialogue and bland, uninspired imagery that couldn't be crammed into the movie.
Avoid at all costs unless the thought of ghost baseball players coming to life to stand around, scratch themselves and spit all over again makes you tear up. This movie's popularity will forever shake my faith in humankind.