Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

The Final Season

Unintentional sports comedy

By BRETT MICHEL | October 17, 2007

1.5 Stars

THE FINAL SEASON: Not a homerun.

Sean Astin’s latest starring role finds him aiming to hit the emotional high he achieved in 1993’s Rudy, but David M. Evans’s latest crack at America’s favorite pastime (he previously directed The Sandlot, another ’93 film) is less inspirational sports drama and more unintentional comedy. “Norway is baseball,” one character observes, but this bucolic Iowa town (population: 506) faces losing its championship team –– and thus its identity –– through a high-school consolidation. Kent, the coach played by Astin, likens himself to “Clark,” and his earnestness pervades the film, but not nearly as much as the corn. There’s enough here to empty a whole field of dreams.

Topics: Reviews , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Sean Astin

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/18 ] 20th Annual Cajun & Zydeco Mardi Gras Ball @ Rhodes-On-the-Pawtuxet

[ 02/18 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

[ 02/18 ] A screening of Andy Warhol's Sleep @ RK Projects + Magic Lantern Cinema

ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL

REVIEW: THIS MEANS WAR | February 16, 2012
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.

REVIEW: THE VIRAL FACTOR | January 17, 2012
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.

REVIEW: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE | January 17, 2012
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."

REVIEW: THE DIVIDE | January 10, 2012
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."

REVIEW: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL | December 20, 2011
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.