Everyone's Hero (15 September 2006)
directed by Christopher Reeve, Colin Brady, Dan St. Pierre
starring Jake T. Austin, Brian Dennehy, Whoopi Goldberg, William H. Macy, Mandy Patinkin, Dana Reeve, Rob Reiner, Robert Wagner, Forest Whitaker, Ed Helms, Ray Iannicelli, Gideon Jacobs, Richard Kind, Rosetta Brewster, Ritchie Allen, Will Reeve, Raven
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MPAA rating: Studio: IDT Entertainment, Dan Krech Productions Script: Robert Kurtz, Jeff Hand Music: John Debney Running time: 90 minutes Tags: 1930s; Adventure; Animation; baseball; Family Film; New York Yankees; Ruth, Babe; trains; World Series Tactical strength: [5/10]
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I took four kids (ages 15, 11, 9, and 2) to see Everyone's Hero. On the way home, I asked them if the liked the movie. I got several uncommitted responses: "It was ok." Then I asked, "Should we turn around and see it again?" I got three emphatic nos. And that about sums up Everyone's Hero. Really, you can't say much bad about the movie, but you can't say much good about it either.
Ten-year-old Yankee Irving (voice by Jake T. Austin) loves baseball and tries to play with older boys in a nearby sandlot. Yankee can't hit to save his life. After the other boys abandon him at the sandlot, Yankee finds a lost baseball under a derelict car. The baseball talks to Yankee, but no one else can hear the voice. Yankee names the baseball Screwie (voice by Rob Reiner).
Yankee's dad (voice by Mandy Patinkin) works as a janitor at Yankee stadium, and one night he lets Yankee into the locker room, where Yankee admires Babe Ruth's bat Darlin' (voice by Whoopi Goldberg). A security guard comes upon Yankee and tells him to get lost. The next morning police come to Yankee's house investigating the theft of Babe Ruth's bat. Everyone suspects Yankee, and the manager fires Yankee's dad. Something jogs Yankee's memory and he recognizes the security guard as Chicago Cubs pitcher Lefty Maginnis (voice by William H. Macy), and Yankee decides to run away from home to recover the bat from Lefty, return it to Ruth, and restore his father's job. Yankee recovers the bat quite early in the film and decided to return the bat to Ruth in person in Chicago, where the Yankees and the Cubs are playing the World Series. Along the way, Yankee meets some kind people who help him to reach Chicago and teach him some fundamental baseball skills.
Don't expect ground breaking animation, but the CGI work does a good enough job that you never really see any major goofs. If you needed to single out a major problem with the film, you would have to point to the comedy. Since Yankee must remain innocent, he cannot deliver much in the way of sarcastic or situational comedy. Instead we must endure tedious repartee between Screwie the baseball and Darlin' the bat. After the bad comedy exchanges, we must endure numerous slapstick injuries to Lefty as he chases Yankee, including numerous crotch shots and a collision with a train. If you wanted to point out minor problems, you could start with all the anachronisms for a film set in the 1930s. Much of the dialogue draws from modern day slang, with phrases like, "Back in the day." The Cubs owner plays with bobble-head dolls, and he even does a hip-hop inspired victory dance. You could then move on to historical accuracy . . . well, let's not.
Everyone's Hero has a good moral -- "just keep swinging" -- and you can see why such a theme would appeal to writer/director Christopher Reeve. Nothing in the story makes you want to see this movie again, and you feel bad that this movie serves as a final tribute to Christopher Reeve. Most likely, the DVD sales will more than recover the film's budget, since grandparent's who will have never seen the film will give it to their grandchildren based entirely on the rating.
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