What I love about this movie is that there seems to have been no scrutiny on the part of the studio n its production … hence, here's a PG-rated movie in which 13-year-old boys smoke, drive (?), and steal Playboys. Which is how it is in real life, but not how Hollywood typically shows it. Also notable is hotheaded Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes), who is unreserved in his hurling of racial epithets at his diverse teammates – the mouth on that kid would probably give Andrew Dice Clay pause. Better yet, his teammates take it in stride, because Tanner's just a hothead. The rest of the characters are similarly one-dimensional. Engelberg (the "fat kid") shows up to practice, out of breath from riding his bicycle, and immediately brings out five Hershey® bars for a snack. Ahmad Abdul Rahim (the Black kid, of course), frets endlessly that the team is about to go "to the joint" for their various transgressions. Ogilve (the "nerd"), doesn't seem to realize when two hot teen girls are flirting with him. The plot has the Bears road-tripping to Houston to play a charity game in the old Astrodome. Though the Bears won the state championship in the original, they somehow have fallen back into complete rag-tag disorder, so tough kid Kelly (the alarmingly ugly Jackie Earle Haley, stepping in for the apparently too-stoned Brandon Cruz from the first one) looks up his estranged father (William Devane) to coach the team to victory. New to the team is Carmen Ronzonni (Jimmy Baio), whose cocky-Wop posturing convinces everyone he's a great pitcher, until they see him pitch and quickly realize he's terrible. Fortunately, Devane is able to get the boys back up to champion caliber within a weekend. The movie is mostly quite static, with perhaps too much realism in the road trip sequence, as you end up feeling that you've had to stop for every bathroom break they have. But it shapes up nicely when they get to the big game (Tanner's dizzy awe as he stares up at the roof of the Dome is one of my favorite movie scenes ever), and gets some genuine heart out of Kelly's reluctant reconnection with his dad. For such a shifty-looking guy, William Devane is really good at conveying sincere, simple emotion. TOO BAD MY DAD WASN'T. The '76/'77 Astros show up briefly toward the end, giving the film a gigantic feel-good ending with the additional long-term benefit of warm 'n' fuzzy nostalgia. By the end, you feel like you've seen a terrific movie, though most of that reaction comes from the shameless last-minute fireworks and heartstring-pulling. I can't truthfully say it's great, but I've watched this movie enough times that its actual mediocrity clearly does not matter. The kids look like I did in 1977, and they win a great baseball game in the long-lost Houston Astrodome, with the orange-and-brown-striped Astros themselves cheering 'em on. It's a classic fantasy for male nerds who secretly wanted to be good at sports, which I never was on account of rickets.
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