“Everyone’s Hero” (20th Century Fox)
As Lightweight As Cotton Candy
“Everyone’s Hero” is yet another animated film for the kiddies this year. This one is important because it is the last movie Christopher Reeve worked on as a co-director, and his late wife Dana provided one of the voices. So you want to like this movie and even give it more importance than it deserves. But in truth it is just an average story with mediocre animation and nothing aside from sweetness to make it special.
Like cotton candy this movie looks bright and cheery but it is full of air. It melts away from your thoughts before you reach the outside of the theater where you were viewing it. Young kids might, and I stress might, enjoy the story of a kid who is trying to return Babe Ruth’s bat to him, but I think they probably will want something a bit faster paced.
The story concerns a nice kid named Yankee Irving (voiced by Jake T Austin) who longs to be a good baseball player. The other kids in his neighborhood ridicule him and tell him to go home. They don’t want him playing baseball with them.
One day he discovers a lost baseball under a junked vehicle. Amazingly the ball can talk but only Yankee can hear him. Yankee names the ball Screwie (Rob Reiner) and they become friends. It is Screwie that Yankee turns to when his Dad is accused of losing Babe Ruth’s bat, Darlin’ (Whoopi Goldberg). Yankee knows that his Dad, who is a maintenance man at Yankee Stadium, is innocent. He saw a guy who looks a lot like Cubs pitcher Lefty Maginnis (William H Macy) lurking around the locker room where the bat was stored.
Yankee decides to find Maginnis, get Darlin’ back, and take the bat to Babe Ruth. All of this sounds like fun but the plot seems to drag on forever before anything really happens. Then in an ending even the kids in the audience won’t accept, Yankee finds himself playing in the World Series.
The film is rated G
Maybe in another year when there hadn’t been an “Ice Age 2” or a “Monster House” to win kids’ hearts a movie like “Everyone’s Hero” might have had a shot. But there is just too much competition out there for a so-so film to attract the attention of the kiddie audience.
“Everyone’s Hero” has its heart in the right place and its message about never giving up is a good one. Still sweetness can only go so far and this one’s charm evaporates quickly.
I scored “Everyone’s Hero” a fouled out 4 out of 10.
