Mr. 3000 (1/2
star)
review by Jon
Waterman
Stan Ross was one of the greatest hitters alive. His whole
goal in life was to reach the hall of fame, and he knew that
reaching the milestone of 3000 hits would guarantee his spot
there. Once he accomplished that plateau, he retired, leaving
his team in the lurch. Fast forward to nine years later on
the eve of the hall of fame induction, it’s discovered
that Stan is actually three measly hits shy of the 3000 hits
that he’s built his franchise on. Now, to prove he’s
not a huge joke, he’s going to make a comeback and rejoin
the team he left behind and get those last three hits. Piece
of cake, right?
Remember the good old days of baseball comedies? You don’t
have to go back too far to find some funny stuff. Look at “Major
League,” “A League of Their Own,” “The
Sandlot,” “Rookie of the Year,” and even “Mr.
Baseball.” This film does not stack up to even “Little
Big League.” Simply put, it didn’t make me laugh.
It made me bored. It made me tired. It made me wish I had my
money in my wallet. It made me wonder how and why it got made.
It did not make me laugh.
Bernie Mac (Stan Ross) is a funny guy…when he’s
doing stand-up. Give him a role and scripted lines that he
didn’t write and he can’t make them any better.
It wasn’t just that the dialogue was so bad. They also
wrote things that made no sense or really came to any fruition.
There’s a guy in a wiener outfit for the Brewers’ famous
hot dog race who heckles Ross in mundane, obvious ways. He
really serves no purpose. The side plot of the film is to get
the Brewers to third place. But they don’t say of what.
If they mean the division, then it’d be pointless, because
that wouldn’t get them into the playoffs. If they mean
the whole conference (National League), then that’s another
story, but since there are three division winners and a wild
card that get into the playoffs, getting third would really
mean winning the division. No matter what, it’s stupid
and the movie suffers greatly because of it (for reasons I
can’t really divulge here for spoiler avoidance reasons).
The premise was weak to begin with, but hey it’s a baseball
movie. How deep does it have to be? Not very. The problem is
that nothing really makes sense, nor does it make effective
jokes. There are some nice looking commercial parodies and
non-parody shots, but the fun just never gets off the bench.
The film strikes out with the audience looking, mouths agape.
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