"THE SANDLOT 3: HEADING HOME"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ** (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars) STARRING Luke Perry as TOMMY (20s/40s) Danny Nucci as BENNY Sarah Deakins as SARA Chauncey Leopardi as SQUINTS Keanu Pires as TOMMY Alexander Ludwig as E.J. Rated PG Studio: FOX Directed by: William Dear Back to DVD Review Home |  |
I came to “The Sandlot 3: Heading Home” at a disadvantage. Not only had I not seen either of the two previous films, but I came without a love of baseball.
Sure, I’d played baseball and softball as a child, but let’s face facts – I sucked. No matter how much love you have for the game, you’ll never find yourself blasting out the ball during little league if you really aren’t a very good player, no matter what the movies may say.
So while “The Sandlot 3: Heading Home” takes place in my era – the mid-1970s – I didn’t feel the same nostalgia for the story that kids who played on their own sandlot back then would.
Still, I wanted to give the movie a shot. And to do that, you have to give a lot of concessions. A film like this can’t be compared to the regular theatrical releases. It’s a straight-to-video film with very little money behind it and no recognizable names. With the exception of Luke Perry, who plays the title character as an adult, the next most recognizable face is Febrizio from “Titanic.”
So, “The Sandlot 3: Heading Home” has to be looked at like a direct-to-DVD movie, and it can’t even be compared to the first film... which is a good thing considering I haven’t seen it.
The film opens with a retrospective of the career of Tommy Santorelli (Luke Perry), an arrogant baseball star who is great at the game but a real jerk. This retrospective film explains how he found fame after being picked up by a little league scout when he was a boy.
During a batting practice session, Tommy is hit by a wild pitch, which sends him back in time to 1976. Here, he not only meets up with his old buddies from childhood, but he gets to be with his mother once again before she died of cancer. Tommy is a natural, and the baseball team from the sandlot want him to play for them. He befriends the kids, but he faces some dangerous temptations that led him down the successful but shallow past the first time.
Once you get past the romance novel convention of time travel, this movie isn’t terrible. It’s a decent kids film, and there’s not much that is going to be outside of the a family-friendly audience. The set-up and delivery of the show reminds me of one too many Saturday morning specials I watched as a kid (ironically some of them in 1976). It has a good message, and that works for a parent keeping an eye on what their kids watch.
Also, this second sequel has its fair share of references to the original and the second film. In fact, there’s an entire sequence where the kids break into a supposedly haunted mansion of Mr. Mertle. This scene makes absolutely no sense to someone like me who has not seen the first two films, but for the “Sandlot” fan, it should be significant.
The film comes with a nice assortment of extras, from commentaries to video diaries from the director and a couple of the child stars. There’s also an interview with a classic relief pitcher, but as you read earlier, my affinity to baseball isn’t that much, and they could have been interviewing the guy who paints the lines on the field for all I knew.
Ultimately, this movie was about what I expected for a direct-to-DVD second sequel. Little league fans and those who liked the first couple films should find some enjoyment in “The Sandlot 3: Heading Home.” However, it’s not exactly the best place to start with the series.
Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Widescreen (1.85:1) – enhanced for 16x9 televisions. French and Spanish language tracks. Spanish subtitles. English subtitles for the hearing impaired.
