Review of Mr. 3000 (2004) by Casey S — 04 Jun 2005

I haven't liked most of the great comedies of recent years the first time I saw them. Tommy Boy, Billy Madison, the Austin Powers movies, Anchorman. Don't get me wrong: I thought they were funny, but they got to be too much for me to take in in one sitting. Later, when I'd watch them in smaller pieces, I'd find them hilarious. How did I not find this funny before, I'd wonder?

Modern comedy is self-referential and self-aware. There was a great Chris Farley bit on [i]Saturday Night Live[/i], where Michael Keaton grabs him his headlock and his poorly attached wig keeps falling off. Very funny but it continually reminds you that you're watching a bit. The Simpsons, Family Guy, and the type of comedy these shows inspire works in the same sort of way, working on multiple levels simoultaneously: within and without the reality of the story. In this context, it makes the experience of following an hour and a half movie jarring.

So having said this, the best thing I can say about [i]Mr. 3000[/i] is that it's not particularly funny. It's not. Bernie Mac is a talented comedian, but here, bowing at the altar of the PG-13 gods, he's without the "M-F" word. Instead he plays a--oh what do you call them?--a character.

Not that it's a character completely separated from his Bernie Mac persona. He's Stan, a cocky baseball player who's managed to get 3,000 hits in his career. Now retired for a few years, he finds out that several of his hits were counted erroneously in his stats, and that he is really three hits short of 3,000. So he does what any reasonable egomaniacal stat hog would do: he comes out of retirement to get those 3 hits back.

He returns to a last-place Milwaukee Brewers team that has one star player and a bunch of guys who are just running the season out.

Paul Sorvino (Paulie from [i]Goodfellas[/i]) is wasted and unfunny as the club's manager. Stan sleeps with a reporter played by Angela Bassett in a series of scenes that go absolutely nowhere (except to demonstrate that women in their mid-forties can still have smokin' bods). Still, I enjoyed the movie. What I liked about it was:

1) The movie exists in the real world of sports media. They discuss him on PTI. Stan goofs on Tom Arnold on Best Damn Sports Show. ESPN is everywhere. In the real world, the way a story is covered is of as much importance as anything else.

2) Parts of the dugout chatter felt authentic. Not all of it, mind you. But I liked the quips Stan would make to the younger players about focusing on the game and not on their conversations. My dream broadcast of a real ballgame would include a camera in the dugout that caught everything the players say and was uncensored and unscripted. So anything coming close catches my attention.

3) Stan sucks. What would happen if a 47-year-old player tried to come back after ten years? He'd be awful. And Stan is.

4) The movie doesn't end with the star player hitting a home run to win the big game. There's a big game, but not in any meaningful way; the team is well out of contention.

It helps to like baseball.