Tries to be exactly the same
Calling “Major League 2” half-hearted sounds like an insult, until you watch the no-hearted third one, which makes this one look like it’s doing pretty well. In actuality it’s not totally laughless. It does ok in the early going but it’s easy to tell all that’s missing.
The Cleveland Indians started improving some after “Major League 2” came out, but up until that point, David S. Ward’s “Major League” films were all those fans had. It’s too bad that this second one doesn’t have his same “labor of love” verve that the first one did. In fact, it seems to just be trying to imitate it all over again.
Some of the characters are still funny. Pitcher Wild Thing Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) has shirked his motorcycle-riding ex-con image for a more clean cut one, though the wild thing still looks like it’s trying to break free at times, no matter how many hoity toity antiperspirant commercials he does.
Home Run hitter and former voo-doo worshiper Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert), usually great for an angry temper tantrum, has become a Buddhist in the off-season and now pussy-foots around everyone and everything, including birds he accidentally hits with a ball.
And Willie Mays Hayes (now played by Omar Epps in a good example of imitation over the real thing) is still swagger, talk, and base-stealing, but he’s done a terrible movie with Jesse “The Body” Ventura in the offseason called “Black Hammer, White Lightning.”
Adjusting to their new celebrity isn’t all. Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen) has retired from ballplayer and is now the owner and Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) is troubled by a bum knee to the point where his only option is to become the team manager.
There are subplots galore here, from Vaughn having to choose between his super hot agent (Alison Doody) or the ex-girlfriend (Michelle Burke) who teaches disadvantaged kids, to Dorn having to sell the team back to Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whiton) for no other reason than it seems the movie can’t think of another antagonist, to Randy Quaid, getting far too much time to scream and yell insults from the stands as a fair weather fan.
The first half seems content to coast on not very funny quirky characters, like new addition Tanaka (Takaaki Ishibashi), a Japanese stereotype who yells a lot and imitates carrying around big balls. Thankfully, Bob Uecker is still on hand as the team announcer, seemingly improving his dissatisfaction with the team as the movie goes. “Welcome to Major League Baseball…sort of.”
But as the team starts to come together again and get back to basics, the whole thing goes on auto-pilot, the subplots that didn’t really mean much anyway seem even less important, and even the small moments of clever laughs dissipate because no one’s the clown anymore.
It seemed like the first movie had more wit than this one generally does. The characters were more fun to be around, too. “Major League 2” feels more like a lazy retread trying to give time to everybody, but no one is even half as amusing as in the first. From there, all that’s left is a predictable, and pretty soulless, march toward the team winning again. No wonder the third one went “Back to the Minors”.