Monthly Archives: February 2025

Little Big League Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a wholesome Baseball film. Imagine if you woke up one day and were the owner of a professional baseball team? There’s a lot that could go on from there. Admittedly if you’re not an ambitious person you may just immediately sell the team and collect your hundreds of millions of dollar. Nothing wrong with that but if you are a competitive person then it’s time to prove your skills on the biggest audience you have ever encountered. It makes for a fun film that does have some cheesy moments here and there.

The film starts off with introducing us to Billy and his grandfather. They would always go to the games together and since grandpa owned the Minnesota Twins, they got great seats. Well, one day his grandpa dies and leaves the team for Billy. Billy’s still just a kid but he is eager to continue his father’s legacy and get a good victory. As the film goes on Billy learns more about the inner workings of the sport but also starts to lose his humanity. Has the power and fame gotten to him?

Billy is probably the most annoying character in here because of how quickly the power corrupts. He doesn’t have a very strong moral compass as he forgets about his friends and even about his ethics. He is quick to use his newfound powers to rent movies that aren’t appropriate and doesn’t seem very apologetic the whole time. They say that money and power bring out the bigger version of you and this absolutely exposed Billy for the person hat he really is. It was an unfortunate situation on all sides. By the end he slowly starts to get better but it would have been really nice if he could have stayed strong the whole time. He could have shown that perhaps a kid can be a good owner.

His team certainly wasn’t the best though. A bunch of them were just total quitters the whole time. They punched in to do their jobs and then they dipped. Not the best way to go about things. I guess when it’s hopeless then you can see how people would check out but the fact that some of them were still throwing games just to spite Billy was pretty bad. It shows that they did not have the right priorities here at all so in a way you don’t even want to root for them. Perhaps they deserved the original coach who was always yelling at them.

The most important Baseball player here is Lou because he has a crush on Billy’s Mom. Sorry guys but this was a pretty bad subplot. You can’t be dating the owner’s mother. Yes, he likes her before Billy became his boss but by that point it was all over. He needed to break it off. There are way too many conflicts of interest here and of course as this is a classic rebound, it’s no a romance plot that I could really go for. For better or worse the relationship would need to wait until after Billy retired.

Additionally, Lou enters a slump around this time and while the timing might be coincidental, I’ve never really put much stock in coincidences. They’re just hard to believe if you ask me. Things tend to happen for a reason in most cases and in this case I think Lou was just too distracted. Too busy with romance instead of hitting the books and working on his batting swing. That’s a real problem.

Meanwhile Billy’s other friends weren’t really much better. They were quick to abuse their power as well to pick on the new kid once Billy left. Seems like a rather vicious cycle. Obviously this is all played for laughs but it’s still not a good look for the kids. They aren’t exactly the most humble kids out there.

The movie is at its best when focusing on the actual Baseball. It was nice to see Billy showing off his knowledge and the players actually getting to put it into practice. There are definitely ways you can help someone even if you aren’t a Master’s level expert in Baseball or anything like that. I can buy the kid being an owner to a degree since he would just have to hire the right talent who would take care of the day to day. Actually going out there and talking with the team? That would be more of a distraction for sure.

I think the movie could have even been more fun if they aged the kid up a bit. It would have allowed him to really contribute a bit more and you could still have the players being defensive about having to listen to a teenager. Yeah they would look petty but to be honest they already look petty here so it’s not like it would be much different. Good advice is good advice regardless of who is giving it.

While this is something you can always do for yourself anyway, it was really nice seeing the huge spreads that the Baseball players get after each game. It would certainly help take the sting out of the defeat for me. It wasn’t even anything too fancy, chips and sandwiches but the fact that they were endless was awesome. As the owner you would be able to partake in the meal each time too. Just another one of the endless perks of being an owner.

Overall, The movie is pretty fun and has solid pacing. I think it could have stood to have a little more fun with the premise and focus on Billy being a generational coach instead of letting all of the drama get more important. That said, the premise alone makes this a pretty fun film. Who hasn’t thought about being a boss while you were still a kid right? There would be a whole lot of things that you could do and you feel like you would be able to handle it better than the grownups. Whether that is true or not would certainly depend on the adult in question but that’s the idea. I’d like to see more films like this one. You could definitely do it without making the kid super unlikable though. Have him keep his confidence from the opening scenes without any of the drama and corruption later on. No helping throw water balloons at people or falling asleep during games. That made him look terrible.

Overall 6/10

The Return of the King Review

Posted on by
Reply


Lord of the Rings is one of those series that never has a whole lot of luck with its movies. In fairness you can say that it doesn’t really have much luck in any form of media. The only exception are the video games which are actually pretty decent. This movie does not end the trend as it ends up feeling incredibly drawn out even though it is not the longest film in the series by a long shot. Get ready for a lot of recycled music tracks.

The movie starts in the future with an old Bilbo Baggins being told the story of Frodo and pals. This will be done through music as the story jumps back and forth but Bilbo can hardly even say awake for all of this. So then they talk about the Hobbit and try again to go through the Lord of the Rings story. Definitely not the best attempt at it if I’m being honest here. Lets go right into my biggest problem with the story though. Are you ready for this? It’s the annoying songs that pop up and have absolutely no variety. You’re going to hear the same tunes over and over again.

Like I said before, it’s almost impressive just how repetitive it can be. By the halfway point of the film you’ll be wincing every time the same song shows up. You just know that you’re going to be in for another long sequence. It would help if the songs were actually good but of course I don’t think anyone was expecting that. The idea of a bard singing about the glories of war and the legendary victory makes sense in concept, but the execution was never going to be there. It’s just not the kind of song that would really take a film to the next level.

The animation isn’t as weird as in the last film but I still can’t say that it looks good either. I would say it gets by as a cookie cutter type of cartoon you might have seen on TV in passing when trying to get to the channel you were aiming for. I don’t want to go too hard on the animation though because by default it’s probably the best part of the film. So credit where credit is due because it’s not like they had a whole lot to work with.

As always Gandalf just doesn’t look all that good here. He’s sending these characters on absolutely outrageous quests because he doesn’t have the willpower needed to handle the ring on his own. I didn’t really go on about the story much did I? Well basically Frodo and his best friend have to deliver a cursed ring into the legendary fires by Sauron’s castle. If they can do this, the ring can finally be taken out of the equation and the dark lord will lose a lot of his power. The heroes will have finally conquered evil once and for all. It’s a pretty good deal and at this point it’s not like they have many other options either. Every other character refuses to associate with the ring. Its corrosive nature is too much for them.

The ring essentially tries to break your will at all times as it corrupts you into turning to the darkness. It’s a serious problem and so on one hand you can say it’s good that the characters know their limits. At the same time, it’s still pretty annoying to see the whole time because these “heroes” should do better. Gandalf especially since he is supposed to be such a powerful sorcerer.

I think the most ironic part about all of this is that Frodo is heralded as being the guy with incredible willpower. The songs are all about him and how he saved the world and yet in the actual movie he spends most of his screentime bending to the ring’s will. Like what happened here? He’s supposed to be the one in control the whole time, not just allowing himself to get absolutely crushed at each station. No matter how you slice it, this was a rough path for him. In fact, Frodo straight up lost and Gollum had to take the guy out. Otherwise Frodo was going to doom the planet.

I never liked Frodo and this film just makes me dislike him even more. His friend did all of the hard work throughout the movie and never got the proper credit that he deserved. He was able to resist the ring through good ole fashioned common sense. Seriously he mentioned that this was all that he needed to resist its effects. He made it look and sound so easy while Frodo was absolutely getting dominated the whole time.

Meanwhile we still have the war and everything but it’s not all that interesting. You’ll be paying more attention to the villains having fun singing songs as they prepare for battle. Classic musical rules apply which means that everybody bursts into singing at the drop of a hat. I suppose it was a decently catchy song…compared to the usual Lord of the Rings tunes.

Now I can at least say this was better than the live action version. It’s not saying much but hey that’s a slight start. It’s just that the original story is already so flawed that any adaption will be doomed as well unless it takes significant liberties. That would be the best way and I don’t think most titles would feel brave enough to do that since the main story is well acclaimed. At least for me though, I don’t see any other way out. The films need to try something super different and then maybe…just maybe the Lord of the Rings can be interesting.

Okay let me squeeze out one more positive for the film. I did like one of Sauron’s top lieutenants. He was some kind of embodiment of death and so he talked a really big game the whole time. Something about how he can’t be destroyed and he will always return. It was an impressive amount of tough talk so I could really respect that. It is obviously all talk but I’ll take my cool points where I can get them. Make this guy the main villain and Frodo’s best friend as the lead and maybe we would have some potential as a film. The key is just to make sure the movie isn’t super boring this time.

Overall, The Return of the King is a film that I would recommend skipping. It somehow pulls off the impossible by making the film fairly short but still being as dragged out as all the others. That should not even be remotely possible and yet the film pulled it off. Really makes you think right? Sauron doesn’t even get to do anything here even if he would have just ben getting wrecked anyway. Let me at least see this legendary figure of evil in the present when he wasn’t getting one shot by the random fighter. If you were thinking about watching this, check out Star Wars instead.

Overall 4/10