Sometimes you do things you just don't expect. Yesterday I saw Everyone's Hero.
Yes, Everyone's Hero. Bad computer animation. Stupid plotting. Whoopi Goldberg as the voice of a talking baseball bat. Rob Reiner as a talking baseball. A talking baseball, for God's sake. Named Screwy, no less.
Tabbatha's son Paul had been wanting to see this thing, and it had vanished rather quickly from theaters. But it was playing at the cheapo theater up in Ames, so okay, fine.
And well, obviously, not my cup of tea. In fact, at times it was so stupid, it was hard to know how sentient beings could have cobbled together such a script, with its clumsy balancing of "cartoonish" behavior (characters being dragged by trains but walking away uninjured, as opposed to dead, like they'd be in the real world) and sledgehammer sentiment (complete with trite "everyone's a winner if they try" messages). Admittedly, its strongly pro-Yankee, anti-Cubs attitude was kind of heartwarming, and whenever it stopped being about the plot and started being about baseball, it was okay. But, well, still...Screwy the Ball?
That's my take on it, though. I wasn't there for me. I was there for Paul. It was aimed at seven year olds, and to him it was all good. He'd lean forward when our protagonist seemed to be in trouble, and cheer when things went well, and just had a good time watching a movie that seemed to be meant just for him.
So in that sense, I enjoyed it, too.
On the way home, Paul used the various action figures he happened to have with him to recreate scenes from the movie. Somehow the characters from Everyone's Hero started acting out scenes from Star Wars, and everything ended up with a light saber free-for-all (which would have greatly improved the actual movie, come to think of it), and a good time was had by all.
Next weekend Paul and I are going to hole up and watch Star Wars. Real Star Wars, the sacred original trilogy. The kid only knows the prequels. He doesn't even know who han Solo is, for God's sake. So this should be quite an education.
For both of us.
