Alright, so this is my first time ever doing a movie review. This something I've been interested in doing for quite some time. Up until I was a senior in high school, I didn't watch a lot of movies. I would be with friends and they would start talking about a movie and there would be nothing I could contribute to the conversation because most of the time I hadn't seen it. At the beginning of the year 2012, I started to watch movies. I started to study movies, learn as much about the movies I had seen, and watch as many movies as I can. In the late summer I started loading up on DVDs. The college I was planning on going to didn't have a whole lot to do in the area, so I wanted to equip myself with as much entertainment as I can bring. As most of you know, things ended up not working out at that school and I came home and took a semester of classes at Oakton Community College. For a little while I didn't know a whole lot of people that were around the area, with most of my friends being at school. I was also waiting for a few weeks for my class at Oakton to start. In that time I watched a ton of movies. I would watch 1-2 movies per day on average. This semester I haven't been watching nearly as many new movies. At the end of 2012, I wrote a list ranking the films I had seen that came out over the course of the year. There are a lot of movies I still haven't seen, and I still haven't seen a lot, however I enjoy watching movies. When I started this blog I hoped to eventually do movie reviews. When I saw the first promo for 42, I had a feeling this would be my first review.
I have no idea how I'm going to rate the movie. Will I rate it on a scale from 1-10? Will I develop my own form of ranking system? I have no idea. However, if things go according to plan, I will be reviewing many other movies in the near future. Although it is only April, 42 had a bit of a feel like it was kicking off the summer of movies. And what a summer it is going to be, with the release of The Great Gatsby, as well as many other notable films. I'm really looking forward to seeing a new Superman movie (Man of Steel), as well as third installments to the Iron Man and Hangover franchises, and sequels to X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Monsters Inc. Also can't wait to see two new movies from my boy Mark Wahlberg, Pain and Gain and 2 Guns. There are a bunch of other movies that I'm forgetting right now, and probably some good ones that I don't know about yet. The point is that, as I continue to do reviews, I will eventually find a way to rate movies. But for today, I'm just gonna talk about 42.
42 stars Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson in the 1940s in a biopic that tells the tale of how Robinson changed the game of baseball along with the world we live in, being the first black Major League Baseball player ever. I was nervous about this film. When I saw the commercial I thought, "wow that looks really good." But I feared for this. I feared that it wouldn't hit its full potential. The story is an amazing one. Amazing story should equal amazing movie, right? Something I've said a few times the past couple days is that I hoped this film wouldn't just be a single or a double, but it would indeed be a home run.
It can be difficult to blend a movie that focuses on both race and sports. It needs to be balanced well. In order for me to prepare myself for the film and this review, I watched a film that blends the two beautifully. Yes, I watched Remember the Titans last night, a film that tells the true story of two schools- a black school and a white school- joining together in attempt to end racial segregation in 1971. The film shows how a school and a town overcome their racial differences to rally behind their football team, which overcomes racial problems of its own and has an undefeated season and wins a state championship. I hadn't watched the film in a little while and wanted to have it fresh in my mind to know what I should compare 42 to.
So 42 begins with the executive of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, played by Harrison Ford, in his office talking to some others that work for the team. He talks about how he wants to win a World Series with the team, and how he wants to find a player from the Negro League to join their roster. Later it is revealed to us that when he was he playing baseball at Ohio Wesleyan University, by far the best player on his team was black. But because he was black, he never got to play in the MLB. He felt guilty about this and he could never get over it. So he wanted to give a black player a shot. The men he has working under him disagree and think his idea is absurd. This scene reminded me of a scene in a recent baseball movie that I loved and was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, Moneyball. In Moneyball, Oakland A's manager Billy Beane tries to invent the system by his new formula called "moneyball", where he tries to build a team based on statistics and on base percentage. When he brings up the idea to his scouts, his scouts call him crazy. That was what this scene felt like. So far so good.
As the movie progresses they find Jackie and tell him that in order for him to play with them, he needs to keep his cool. If he ever snaps at anyone that uses racial terms, he could find himself in huge trouble. Jackie starts on the minor league affiliate of the Dodgers, the Montreal Royals and impresses many with his speed and athleticism. There are many entertaining subplots to the movie, such as Jackie's relationship with his wife Rachel (Nicole Beharie) and the birth of his son. Beharie gives a good performance as Rachel, faithfully supporting and helping Jackie however she can. Dodgers manager Leo Durocher (played by Christopher Meloni) provides some comedy. Branch Rickey also pays African-American sportswriter Wendell Smith (Andre Holland) to travel and stay with Jackie in separate hotels from the team due to segregation laws. Wendell is a good character to have in this movie and does a good job of helping and taking care of Jackie as they both battle segregation.
Jackie finally works his way up to the bigs and isn't exactly welcomed as he would have liked. Many of his teammates sign a petition in attempt of keeping him from playing on the team. Some players like future Hall of Fame second baseman Pee Wee Reese don't sign and say that if Jackie is talented enough, he should be on the team. Jackie is booed and called horrible racist names by crowds. Some crowds are worse than others. He's thrown at and is hit in the head by a pitch at one point. Jackie receives death threats and hate mail. This film does a great job of depicting what it was like for Jackie as a player. It showed what kind of awful persecution he faced for just playing the game he loved. Boseman does a great job of playing Jackie as he tries to contain his emotions and not let the hatred affect him.
Jackie leads the team to win a pennant, and he wins the Rookie of the Year award. There isn't much for me to spoil as this is a true story, however I won't explain everything that happened in this movie. I think this is a really good and well done movie. It's well-acted and it does a good job of throwing in bits of comedy throughout the film, to lighten the mood. Another thing I loved about this movie was its character development. You see the guys that didn't want anything to do with Jackie when he joined the team change over the course of the film, and they even stand up for him. This film does a good job of balancing drama, race, sports, and comedy. There's a lot of a baseball in it. I feared that they were going to montage through a lot of the baseball, but they do a good job of showing the baseball scenes in good detail. The baseball scenes are pretty sweet. Both baseball fans and non-baseball fans will like this movie. It's a good film for everyone to see.
The most notable performance in the film had to be Harrison Ford's portrayal of Branch Rickey. Ford was terrific in the role. He was very likable and had a lot of charisma. He did a great job of backing Jackie. Will the performance be Oscar-worthy? Only time will tell, as we see other performances to compare it to. But I loved this movie and thought it was a great baseball movie. I love baseball movies and I highly approve of this one.
So this is my first attempt at a movie review and now it's time to hear from all of you. Did you see 42? What did you think of the film? Are you looking forward to my future movie reviews? Comment and let me know. Or as always you can write on my Facebook fan page or on Twitter @vellvita7.
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