With all the attention Major League Baseball players have been attracting lately for their off-the-field behavior the ground is fertile for another
Major League or
Bull Durham-type adult comedy to make sports fans laugh at how seriously today’s baseball stars take themselves. If you’ve read Jose Canseco’s new book or seen newspaper headlines about alleged steroid abuse by some of today’s biggest (relatively as well as figuratively) MLB players then you know we ain’t talking about bat corking or tar spitting. Alas,
Mr. 3000 isn’t the baseball movie to cheer you up. If anything, whether intentionally or not, this sports comedy is a reflection of how the egos and personalities of today’s star athletes supersede the game rather than the other way around.
A long overdue star vehicle for veteran comedian Bernie Mac (The Kings of Comedy, Ocean’s Eleven, Fox-TV’s The Bernie Mac Show), the movie follows the exploits of baseball great Stan Ross (Mac). Thought to be a shoe-in for Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Fame because of his record of 3,000 hits, Ross is shocked to learn that clerical errors by scorekeepers have reduced his hit count by three hits. Now 47 years-old and overweight, Stan suckers his way into the active line-up of a professional baseball team and begins anew his quest to earn the three hits he needs to reach the 3,000 mark. Unfortunately Stan Ross was an a**hole as an active player to everyone around him, and old habits die hard.
For a supposedly family-friendly PG-13 baseball comedy Mr. 3000 sure packs a truckload of bad language (just not the four-letter type) and a low connect percentage when it comes to laughs. Director Charles Stone III starts the movie off in the right track by allowing the Bernie Mac persona to channel though the Stan Ross character. As in his Bad Santa role Mac has a face that’s good at reacting to other people’s behavior and for explosive fits of comedic anger, and Mr. 3000 delivers early on. Mac’s expression when he discovers he’s three hits shy of the 3,000 mark is priceless. Unfortunately as the movie trucks along the direction becomes saccharine and the focus shifts from Stan’s angry outbursts to the realization that he’s been a bastard to everyone around him all his life. I don’t know about you folks but Bernie Mac as a contrived and heartfelt baseball star that turns his life around for the better doesn’t pass the laugh test. Neither does the contrived way the movie forces on viewers a tacked-on romance between Ross and an ESPN reporter (played by Angela Bassett).
There are a few laughs along the way, but by its last third Mr. 3000 has happily settled into a dramatic tone that is only occasionally interrupted by an odd chuckle or two. Considering the minefield of humor that could be squeezed from the subject matter (athletes desperate to be put themselves above the game) and the comedic talent of the main star it’s rather sad to see this baseball comedy strike out swinging. Bernie Mac fans deserve better than to see the man’s talents wasted on such contrived sugar-coated Hollywood hokum.
The Disc:
What initially appears to be a small bounty of DVD extras eventually becomes a monotonous compilation of by-the-numbers content. A sleepy Commentary Track with director Charles Stone III shares production anecdotes and makes it seem like it was more fun to be around Bernie when the cameras were off than on (nice!). There are also Three Deleted Scenes (w/ optional commentary by Mr. Stone), all irrelevant, and Three Extended Scenes that expand on TV-within-the-movie sequences (namely the Sportscenter and Tonight Show segments). An unfunny 3 min. Outtakes Reel follows. Three monotonous featurettes are also on hand: The Making of Mr. 3000 (15 min.), Spring Training: The Extras (10 min.) and ’Everybody Loves Stan’ (3 min.). Only the second featurette is mildly interesting in that it shows how desperate to relive their playing days many former MLB players (the one’s you’ve never heard of) can be.
Visually Mr. 3000’s Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) Video Transfer is pleasant but not spectacular. A surprising amount of compression artifacts and film grain (on a 2004 studio movie??!!) made it into the final print. Aside from that the picture is sharp, clean, colorful and satisfactory. Two English Audio Tracks (DTS 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1) are wasted on a mix that keeps the rear speakers quiet most of the time (with a few sports crowd chanting exceptions) and reproduces the sounds/voices/music from the movie in crystal-clear but rather flat form. French and Spanish Subtitles are also included, with English available only as Closed Captions for the Hearing Impaired.
bottom line:
When will Hollywood learn that a watered-down-for-PG-13-consumption Bernie Mac isn’t as much fun to watch as the angry funnyman we fell in love with in The Kings of Comedy
? Mr. 3000
is a toothless star vehicle for Bernie to earn a few bucks and deliver a few chuckles. It’s also a step backwards from Mac’s hilarious role in 2003’s Bad Santa
and a pretty mediocre DVD as far as interesting extras are concerned. Pass.
By - J.M. Vargas
1/2
