Angels in the Outfield

With an “All-Star” “lineup” this movie “hits” a “home run” “out of the park” would be a terrible punny way to start off this piece. It’s also a little inaccurate. Unlike a lot of people, I think Angels in the Outfield was a stupid movie. I’m of course referring here to the one with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, not the original. Did anyone even see the original? I hope not.

(I didn’t realize Photoshop was this old. Danny Glover never looked like that. Maybe it’s a French thing or whatever stupid language this is in)

Angels in the Outfield is about a foster child whose motorcycle riding father tells him they cannot be a family again until the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim baseball team wins the pennant. What an awful reason to give your kid up for adoption. Because a baseball team sucks you can’t stick around to give him a home? At least he only said when they win a pennant. All the Angels had to do was make it to the World Series. They didn’t actually have to win. I like to think as soon as they clinched the division the dad upped the ante and told his son to wait another playoff round.

The main kid is played by the earlier mentioned Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He lives in the foster home with a black kid and a mean 16 year old that for some reason gets adopted before them. If you’re out there adopting 16 year olds you’re pretty lazy. You only have 2 years of agony to deal with. Please, never adopt a kid who can shave. The foster mother also happens to be the Pigeon Lady from Home Alone 2. The only other movie I know her from was My Left Foot where she plays Christie Brown’s mom. Can this poor woman ever have a normal life on film?

(She hasn’t really worked much since this role. Anyone willing to cover themselves in pigeons for a side character must have something wrong with her. Susan Boyle? I bet she’s Susan Boyle now)

The Angels baseball team also has a few famous actors on it. They are managed by Danny Glover who has a character arc of going from disgruntled hothead to loving black man. I guess he was also a hotheaded black man but that might sound racist. The star aging pitcher on the team is Tony Danza. This always bothered me. Even at the time Tony Danza didn’t look like a ballplayer. I think he’s shirtless a lot in the movie too. Somehow I’ve also seen nude photos of Tony Danza in my lifetime. Why have I not killed myself?

In the film the Angels are helped by actual angels sent by God. I guess African famine was solved. The main angel is played by Christopher Lloyd who is a complete goofball as I imagine angels would not be. The angels do things like swing on the foul pole to help a ball stay fair, steal hats from umpires, and one gives a guy a backrub. Is it strange if I say the backrub scene always came off as really sexy to me? At least I didn’t say the same thing about the Tony Danza picture.

(I’m really curious why there are so many Angels fans sitting in the upper deck and not with anyone else. You’d think a baseball game might be something you’d go to with your friends. Angels fans are lonely)

Eventually the Angels do win the pennant. The final play of the big game comes when Tony Danza, a pitcher, has to dive for a short pop up. It’s a sad moment too because Christopher Lloyd, who goes by the name Al in the film, tells Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who goes by the name Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the film, that Tony Danza is going to die in a year from lung cancer from all the smoking he’s done. Thank you Disney for working in an anti-smoking message from out of nowhere.

At the film’s conclusion Danny Glover decides to adopt JGL after they’ve “adopted” a positive relationship together of their own. He teases that he’s only adopting JGL but ends up also adopting the black kid. It’s funny because whenever they would go grocery shopping after people were probably confused. They would possibly assume Danny Glover’s first wife had a dry womb so they adopted a white kid together. Then he found a new wife and they managed to make a full black baby. But now since they’re all grocery shopping together the second wife is dead. Three males should never enter a grocery store together unless they’re about to rob the register.

(If this part in the film doesn’t give you chills you have no soul. They can be chills of hope or of the douche variety. I’d go with the latter)

This film had way too many inaccuracies and implausible points in it which is why I never liked it. It was also way too feel-good. I think what annoyed me most was they used the old “hey I said run home meaning run to home plate but the kid actually started to run to where he resides” joke. I also hated that scene because a fat kid came up to bat and Danny Glover kept saying “Oh look Babe Ruth is here. Everybody back up for the Bambino.” As if the kid needed to be reminded how fat and undesirable to women he was.

P.S. I forgot Adrien Brody was in this movie. He plays a poor hitting utility infielder. Adrien Brody is Jewish. At least they kept it accurate and made him just about the worst player on the team.