Well let's just get one thing straightened out real quick before I start to write this review. I have stated before 'Don't ever mess with the original' and with the exception of very few movies in film history (with the exception of true series i.e. Back to the Future, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, etc.) It's 'impossible to match up to the first.' Sticking with that... this is by far the dumbest movie I have seen in a long time. If you've seen the original Sandlot I seriously suggest saving your money on buying this one on DVD. And for those of you haven't seen the original made in 1993 go buy that DVD as opposed to this one.
This review is designed more for those who have seen the original; for those of you who haven't seen it I'll make reference at the end of the review as to points where certain moments are better in the 1993 making.
A group of friends are let out of the slumbers of having to attend school all year, until finally the summer let's out and they can play the game that they love so much everyday. That game was the game of baseball. However that was all about to change when a pip-squeak, rocket loving, nerd from the fourth grade decided that he was going to set off a rocket on the playing field of the Sandlot. As the players attempted to track him down, the rocket flared off into the dugout setting it afire. The new neighbor, a girl by the name of Hayley, who lives just over the left field fence, ends up saving their field by allowing them to use her hose. What the boys didn't know is that her and her friends were extremely good softball players and also wanted to play on the Sandlot. After some struggles the boys decided to let them play for their team to go against one of the town's little league teams. They would befriend the little nerd known as Johnny, or Smalls. Johnny was a boy interested only in Rockets and the ironic thing was that Hayley's father was an employee of NASA that was working on a special project for a few years already. Well one day little Johnny caught a glimpse of what her father was putting together and as an act of friendship he offered to have Johnny be there with him when he was to first set it off. Johnny went to visit him the morning that they were meeting launch the rocket and was left disappointed to not see him there.
The garage door, which is usually locked with multiple key locks and is the workshop of Hayley's father, was left wide open. Johnny then took the initiative and decided to set it up and wait for him to get home. He waited for so long that he was falling asleep and while doing so dropped the remote, launching the rocket high up in the air. It comes to turn out that the demonstration Johnny and he were doing was a display to the world of 'the most important piece of engineering in the history of mankind' and would help catapult the United States Space program. Coincidentally the rocket would land in the backyard of a new legend, the Great Fear.
In the originally movie the introduction to the 'villian' was more or less the same, but is better understood if the viewer were to see the original. There is a point in this movie where the Sandlot squad has an altercation where the exchange of insults are doled out. In The Sandlot the insults are more animated and seem to contain more hatred when given to the opposition. The characters from the 1993 movie had better personalities whereas in this movie personalities weren't really shown and everything was focused more on getting the rocket back.
After watching both it was almost like this movie took of four or five days to plan out and a feeble attempt to make more money off of the first one. The theme of retrieving something is the same in both movies. The original is so much better, because since this is a baseball movie, the retrieval of an autographed baseball by Babe Ruth seems to fit so much better than a space rocket. I don't know if that's just my opinion, but I would of rather have seen them lose the ball that "Benny the Jet" and Johnny's older brother, Scotty "Smalls", from the 1993 movie get lost over the fence. That ball was signed by all of the players on Babe Ruth's 1961 Yankee team.
I'm just hoping that people would seriously take my advice in buying The Sandlot as opposed to The Sandlot 2 on DVD if they interested in a baseball-themed movie loved by all ages.
"The Sandlot 2: Son of the Beast" opens May 3, 2005 and is rated PG. Children & Family, Sports. Directed by David M Evans. Written by David M. Evans and Robert Gunter. Starring James Earl Jones, James Willson, Samantha Burton, Max Lloyd Jones.
