42 Movie Review

Okay, so for those of you who might've been slightly confused by the name of this post, NO this is not a belated review of Movie 43. God no.

No spoilers.

Okay, so 42 is the movie about Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier and got African Americans into the MLB. Which begs the question, why is this movie just being made now? Like, why hasn't this already been made? It took Billy Bean all of ten years to get a movie, and apparently it took Jackie Robinson almost seventy. Yeah.

One thing I should mention first: this is not the story of Jackie Robinson's ENTIRE life. This movie does what Lincoln did: it gives you the most interesting part of his life, the thing that he's most remembered for, that was only like a year or two in total out of his life. And I'm glad they did that, because I think that's the best format for biopics, otherwise they get really long and dull. Fortunately averted here.

I'll start with the guy who plays Robinson, I believe his name is Chadwick Boseman: he's great. He portrays Jackie Robinson as this really good guy who stood up for himself and all the crap he kept getting, and I liked seeing that. Which comes into play, because the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who I'll get to in a minute, specifically tells him that he needs to not fight back when everyone treats him like crap. If he does, no  one'll say "he was provoked", they'll say "the black guy lost his temper." So basically, he needs to just play his heart out and destroy everyone on the baseball field, because that way, he wins. And boy does he.

The GM of the Dodgers is played by Harrison Ford, and he's awesome. Like, Oscar Nomination awesome. I'm not saying he would've won, but he could've been nominated. He's almost unrecognizable, too, compared to the parts he usually plays. My friend who I saw the movie with, halfway through he actually asked me (whispering, of course, we were in a crowded theater), "Wait... is that Harrison Ford?!" He gets most of the best lines, too. I won't spoil them, but they're good.

The drama off the field was, by and large, really good: Robinson's dealing with tons of pressure from everyone, a lot of the team doesn't want to accept him (which culminates in this one great scenes that, again, I won't spoil, but it's awesome, in which the manager/coach of the team screams that they all just need to deal with it), and eventually things come together. That being said, even though the team did start to stick up for Robinson eventually, I think it's kind of ridiculous that, aside from one scene in which the Dodgers fail to charge the mound, no one ever really loses their crap and just goes ape on any of the racists, or at least on Alan Tudyk's character (oh Wash, what have you done?). There are some shouting matches, but I kinda would've liked to have seen a fist fight, 'cause let me tell, few things are as immensely entertaining as a fight in a baseball game. That probably sounded wicked shallow and I do not not care because it's true.

The movie did have some good comedy relief lines, to balance things out, and that includes one or two lines that I think are gonna wind up being memes. Heck, the movie came out yesterday, they could already be memes for all I know. If they aren't, they will be. Specifically this line from a little kid and another from Jon Bernthal's character that I can't tell you about because they might lose there comedic value, but it was funny. There were one or two jokes and even dramatic moments that I thought were kind of cheesy, which honestly is one of things that I think bog the movie down a little bit, but they aren't so ever-present that they ruin the whole thing.

One of the best parts of this movie is the baseball itself. It's wicked well directed and choreographed and shot and it just looks awesome. That being said, I wish there was more baseball in it. I guess the trailers were kind of misleading because they showed more baseball than was actually in the movie, which I was disappointed by. That, and the last scene, which, obviously, is at a baseball game, is just Jackie Robinson in one at-bat. It's not a whole game, which was what I and probably everyone else in the theater wanted, just one at-bat.

So, great acting, great drama, great baseball that I wish there had been more of, all in all, I had really good time with 42.

I will say that 42 is a fun way to spend a few hours.

So, what's your favorite baseball movie? Mine, Moneyball, hands down, don't let my Billy Bean joke up top fool you. Comment below, let me know!