Angels in the Outfield (1994)

Angels in the Outfield (Dir: William Dear, 1994).

Walt Disney animation was enjoying a long awaited renaissance in the 1990s, with features such as Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1991) and Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1993) achieving popular and critical success on a scale little seen since the golden age of the 1930s/40s. Over at Disney's live-action department it was a different story. Formulaic comedy and kid's sports movies dominated a release schedule only occasionally punctuated by big hits such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (Joe Johnston, 1989) and Cool Runnings (Jon Turteltaub, 1993). Fantasy baseball movie Angels in the Outfield was the studios' attempt to hit a home run in the busy summer blockbuster season of 1994. 

With his mother dead, young Roger (Joseph Gorden Levitt) is already residing in a foster care home when estranged dad (Dermot Mulroney) tells the boy they will only be a family again when no-hoper baseball team the Angels win the pennant. Roger's prayers are answered when a group of angels, lead by Christopher Lloyd, intervene to secure the team their most successful season. Team manager George Knox (Danny Glover), while skeptical about the heavenly help, befriends the kid, becoming a surrogate father of sorts to the abandoned boy. No spoilers are necessary in this review, as the movie's outcome is obvious long before the final inning.   

A remake of a vintage MGM production, also titled Angels in the Outfield (Clarence Brown, 1951), Disney's take adds kid appeal by way of an extra dollop of saccharine, making an already sticky concept even gooier. Indeed, the combination of angels, orphans and cloying sentiment is a little hard to swallow and may leave a lump in your throat for the wrong reasons. The cliches come quicker than a fastball in a movie photographed through a soft-lens golden hue as if it were perpetual sundown, while some laboured comedy and a predictable plot would have seemed out of date when the original version was released. 

What makes the picture watchable is the surprisingly starry cast. Pre-stardom Joseph Gordon Levitt, Adrien Brody and Matthew McConaughey appear alongside veterans Danny Glover, Brenda Fricker, Christopher Lloyd and Ben Johnson. TV sitcom star Tony Danza contributes a sensitive performance as a washed-up ballplayer while, as the beleaguered boss, Glover invests an earnestness into his performance that the picture really doesn't deserve.  

The fantasy baseball movie had become something a sub-genre of its own by the mid '90s; in the previous decade both The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984) and Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989) achieved considerable artistic and commercial success. While a moderate box office hit, Angels in the Outfield was almost universally panned by critics and three decades later is an almost entirely forgotten entry in the Walt Disney Pictures canon. It did, however, spawn a mini-franchise of sorts, with sequels Angles in the Endzone (Gary Nadeau, 1997) and Angles in the Infield (Robert King, 2000) debuting on ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney television series. 

With an unexpected subject matter from a company that largely avoids spiritual symbolism in its product, the movie is, perhaps tellingly, one of only a few 90's Disney movies yet to make it to the Disney+ streaming service.  Its talented cast means that Angels... is not entirely unwatchable and it has a undeniable weird appeal. Check it out if you must, but be wary that a strong stomach is needed to digest all that sugary sentiment.