Rating: 
Summary: Redford surprise !
Review: Robert Redford surprised with his role in the Natural. With an outstanding way of acting. He seldom played a hero role but he shows in this movie he can play anything. Robert Duvall also had a good performance as the journalist.The movie is well filmed with nice shots.Wilford Brimley as 'Pop' is perfect. This movie needs to been seen not only for the great cast.
Rating: 
Summary: Naturally Absurd!
Review: Robert Reford's dream of a baseball natural is absurd on many levels.I dont mind fantasy type films at all..HOWEVER, they have to have some characters that an audience can have some connection with.
Roy can hit the cover off a baseball..and Mr. Brimley and co...drop their jaws in amazement. Roy can pitch better that Cy Young...and Mr. Brimley's jaw also and again drops in amazement.
( hackneyed dialogue) How many ways can one say WOW!
Many of the fine suppporting actors deliver their lines in amazement..( Robert Duvall etc). Using the game of baseball as a base for all the other insufferable nuances attempted by this film is truly sad indeed. Jimmy Piersall had nothing on Mr. Roy here! Mr. Reford has been out in the sun a bit too long..perhaps he should learn how to hit a cut off man from the outfield. Maybe he has kryptonite in his bat...you know the one he made as a kid...and still uses now to Nuke any baseball..thrown at him. Gosh...There are zero authentic... in tone baseball scenes..who cares...this film hits the triple crown for infantile dialogue, absurd staging and general hokum. There are many great fantasy films out there..this is not one of them.,...perhaps Mr. Reford,'next film will have Charles Van Doren pitching!! CP
Rating: 
Summary: Good film but rips the novel to shreds.
Review: As a baseball fan and film buff, I always loved this film: a wonderful cast, brilliant photography, inspiring musical score, and deeply cool NY Knights baseball uniforms. Then I read Bernard Malamud's novel and discovered something rather disturbing: the film is not only unfaithful to its source, but in a way completely reverses the author's thematic intentions, so much so that I'm surprised Malamud allowed his name to be attached to it. Malamud based the novel on the tale of Sir Percival, the Grail-Knight, who made his own sword and was ultimately defeated for his arrogance and vanity. Malamud's Roy Hobbs is shallow, vain, materialistic, hungry for the glory and admiration that come with stardom but unmindful of the responsibility, constantly making wrong decisions (especially with regard to women) and never acknowledging his own failures and limitations. In the end, he strikes out, the Knights lose, the scandal hits the papers, and Roy, crushed and broken, realizes that he never learned from his mistakes and weeps "many bitter tears." In a way, Roy was like the Mighty Casey, a hero who proved to be fallible even as the hordes cheered him on. Barry Levinson's film offers a completely different take on the myth of the American sports hero, turning him into more of a Sir Gallahad, noble and pure, golden-haired and chiseled, who rescues the sad-sack Knights from oblivion and leads them all the way to the promised land, in the process rediscovering his long-lost love and thwarting the evil plans of some shady characters. The light-shattering home run that ends the film, and the pastoral wheat-field scene in the coda, punctuate the feel-good, all's-well-that-ends-well Hollywood fantasy. Malamud's theme was that heroes are not all they're cracked up to be; flawed, selfish, ordinary human beings whom we probably ought not to hold in such high regard. Levinson's film eviscerates that theme and replaces it with something decidedly less literary and more "entertaining." That said, it is a fine film in its own right, and some of the novel's characters (especially Wilford Brimley's Pop Fisher, Robert Duvall's Max Mercy and Joe Don Baker's Ruth-like "Whammer") and moments (Roy knocking the cover off the ball) come through brilliantly. It's just disappointing that it's ultimately so different from the novel; perhaps it should have been re-titled. Read the book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Baseball And Fine Story-Telling
Review: "The Natural" is a another example of fine story-telling brought to the big screen. Like "Field of Dreams" this film is fine story-telling from beginning to end. Actually, while "Field of Dreams" comes closest to it, "The Natural" has a feel uniquely its own. It has an ethereal, dream-like feel to it and, for anyone who has seen this movie even just once, I would bet that they would recognize it from a ten-second clip taken from any part of the movie. Robert Redford is not my favorite actor; I don't dislike him - I'm just not usually impressed by him. In "The Natural" he finds what I think is his defining role. If I were his agent, I'd advise him to study his performance in this movie and use it as a model for all of his work. For all of the supernatural components in "The Natural", Redford is entirely believable in his search for simple truth, honor, and decency. The viewer can tell that this movie is based upon good literature because almost everything has layers of meaning to it, which is another reason why Redford's straightforward, no-nonsense character shines like a beacon in a cloud of scheming and personal politics.
Rating: 
Summary: How many things are wrong about this movie?
Review: In no particular order:
1. Redford is too old for the role (wouldn't Hobbs be about 34? Redford appears to be late 40's)
2. The Herculean feats became silly. Tearing the cover off the ball -- good fun. Hitting a foul tip that breaks the pressbox window -- stupid. How the heck does a player hit a foul tip faster and harder than anyone in history?
3. The movie was overly solemn -- except when it was weirdly funny. What was with the black humor in the middle when the player crashed through the wall and died?
4. Glenn Close as a love interest? Unbelievable! The woman gives me the creeps (inexplicably, she later again played a supposedly sexy character in "Fatal Attraction". Personally, I think Cruella De Vil was the role most suited for her).
5. I said overly solemn -- also overly melodramatic. The climactic home run was a bit over the top, with the slo-mo, sweeping score, and showers of sparks that somehow fell from light towers onto the basepaths that were two or three hundred feet away. There were some good performances -- by Wilford Brimley, and by the mustachioed coach whose name escapes me. But overall, this is on my list of 10 all-time most overrated movies.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Baseball Movie
Review: "The Natural" - a story about an aging man's fight to hold on to the game he loves so much. Robert Redford, playing Roy Hobbs, a man in his mid thirties tries to break back into major league baseball after a sixteen year absence. Fans of the novel, by Bernard Malamud, have righty critisized the ending of this movie, which is nothing like the ending in the book. Still, it is powerful, over-all, with great performances from Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger, and Wilford Brimley. The movie begins with a young Roy Hobbs, playing ball with his father on the family farm. We can see how well a pitcher young Hobbs it, and it is his father's dream he become a baseball player. The man never lives long enough to see the dream realized, however. Still grieving his father's loss when lightening strikes a tree on the farm, Hobbs is drawn to make a bat out of one of its branches. "Wonderboy" he calls it. Success follows, as Hobbs is offered a contract to play ball. The night before he leaves is spent with his sweetheart, Iris, played by Glenn Close. He never makes it to his destination. Along the way, Hobbs meets up with a mysterious woman who sees in Hobbs a greatness, and she asks him if he will be the greatest ball player ever. When he responses yes - out of some twisted feelings she shoots him, thinking she will gain some kind of fame herself. Her plot backfires, but so to does Hobbs dream of playing ball; at least, for sixteen years. The screen fades to black, and the words "sixteen years later" appear. Hobbs is older, and has been assigned to play with the New York Knights, a lackluster ball club in last place that can't seem to do anything right. The Knights manager, Pops, played by Wilford Brimely, quickly develops a dislike for Hobbs, and refuses to let him play. He has made a bargain with the team's owner, the Judge, that if they win the penant, Pops will control the ballteam. But if they lose, he is out, and the Judge Takes full control of the team. When the leading star for the Knights, Bump Bailey, and Pops argue over a call, Hobbs is called in to replace Bump. Lightning strikes, and Hobbs hits a home run, literaly knocking the cover off the ball. After Bump suffers a fatal crash through the ballpark fence, Hobbs takes over his position, and the homeruns start stacking up, all with wins. Suddenly the New York Knights are contenders for the penant, thanks to Hobbs and his miraculous bat. Memo, played by Kim Basinger is called in to use Hobbs, to distract him from the game so the Knights will start losing again. Her "special" techniques work, and soon he is striking out at every at bat; but only until Hobbs meets up with his old sweetheart, Iris, again. Their romance is rekindled, and Hobbs begins to play better ball. When his sixteen year old wound begins to bother him again, he is sent to the hospital. Without him in the line up, the Knightss begin loosing. The penant is almost out of reach for Pops. Hobbs makes a decision to return to the game, sore as he is, knowing how much the team, and Pops, need him. Everything is relying on this one game ... If you look beyond the "hokum" as some people call it, "The Natural" can be a very enjoyable baseball movie. The happy ending is certainly typical of Hollywood, but at least it is better contrived than other of Hollywoods happy endings.
Rating:
Summary: Every Baseball Fan's Dream
Review: I've heard many critics deride The Natural as hokum. They dismiss the film as well crafted, but criticize it as too long and too overblown. To be sure, The Natural doesn't bear much resemblance to the novel by Bernard Malamud in which Roy Hobbs takes money, strikes out to lose the pennant and is forced from baseball in disgrace. However, the film, as presented, is a wonderful realization of every baseball fan's dream. What baseball fan ever dreamed of winning the World Series with a sacrifice fly? When children dream of baseball, they dream of hitting a massive grand slam in the seventh game of the World Series with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the home team trailing by three runs. The Natural is the visual realization of every baseball fan's dream. Roy Hobbs hits the monumental home runs that every fan dreams about -- shots that destroy clocks, literally knock the covers off balls and annihilate light towers. Just as with all our goals in life, we, as baseball fans, don't fantasize about just barely clearing the outfield wall, we want to blast each pitch into outer space, ensuring that everyone will remember our moment of glory. So few of us ever come close to realizing even a fraction of our dreams. Unless they are a New York Yankees fan, every baseball fan has many more moments of heartbreak than exhiliration. The Natural allows all baseball fans to realize, however fleetingly, the sheer joy of seeing their dreams realized.
Rating:
Summary: No longer baseball fantasy
Review: I must say, when I first saw this movie, I thought it all fantasy. A brilliant movie, yes, but the final scene was pure cotton candy, the suffering ball player moved to perform extraodinarily. The feeling I have, however, is that this movie is not anymore one based in fiction. There's a feeling that baseball, long in the dugout for the past decade, has left the on-deck circle, strolled to the plate, wiped clean the batter's box chalk , tapped it's cleats, surveyed the field and coiled to swing at the first pitch, ready to take flight. The heroics of games 4, 5 and 7 of the World Series seemed to tip their cap to the heroics of this movie, and to times gone by. After all, the last time I can remember enjoying this much the events of the Series was the parallel non-fiction event to "The Natural": Kirk Gibson's dramatic, limping gimpy all-arm 3-2 walk-off home run of Game 1 of the '88 series vs. the dreaded bash brothers and Dennis Eckersley. A classic movie of times gone and hopefully times to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite good, but...
Review: Quite a good film. But it ages as time goes by. It's HILLARIOUS to see Redord and Close try to act as 18 year olds -- bwa ha ha! But this is ... a classic, so memorable that the Simpsons have parodied the final scene, so you know it's good. Just because I have to get it off my chest, I will point out that someone named "Murikami" in the ending credits is a mistake -- it is Murakami. Murakami is a Japanaese name but there's no way to write it in kanji.
Rating:
Summary: Perseverance, Devotion, Honor
Review: This is tied with Field of Dreams for one of the most sentimental films about baseball of all time. But I am a sap for sentimentality, and I loved them both. The story is about a ballplayer who, even though he is shot by a vengeful woman, still tries to achieve his dream. Along the way he will meet many characters, from Robert Duvall's outstanding journalist character to the dirty owner and a manipulative woman. When he hits a slump, he keeps trying, reconnects with his teenage sweetheart and aims to turn his life around. I would buy this movie on DVD even though I own it on VHS already.
|
