5 Responses to “The Natural”

• By L. Schenck on Mar 14, 2010

  A coworker forwarded me a list of ’20 movies that make men cry’ and the Natural was one I hadn’t gotten arount to seeing. (BTW ‘Old Yeller’ is the ONLY legitimate movie on the list.)
  
  The only reason to cry when seeing this movie is from the pain caused by stabbing youe eyes out with an ice pick to avoid seeing any more. My very first impression was that Redford, besides being a terrible actor, looks about 30 years too old to play the ADULT character. Never mind the complete joke of him as a 19 year old. The plot is about as lame as they come and the ending is just stupid. Really NONE of the characters are believable except possibly Glenn Close but her brief screen time is not sufficient to rescue this abomination.
  
  I realize a lot of guys will want to see this for themselves and there is that masochistic fringe that will enjoy this movie simply because it is so bad.
  
  If you just have to subject yourself to this — rent Don’t buy!
  Rating: 1 / 5
• By Mark Wilsonwood on Mar 14, 2010

  I am absolutely baffled by all the positive reviews for this film. I can’t even count all the things I dislike about it, but I’ll list a few:
  
  1. Redford is way too old for his role.
  
  2. Ditto Glenn Close. And not nearly attractive enough, either.
  
  3. How did Roy go from being a prodigy of a pitcher as a teen to being a prodigious power hitter later?
  
  4. The mythic hits by Roy are ludicrous. How in the heck can you hit a foul tip harder than anyone else, so that it shatters a pressbox window? And the climactic homer near the end — what’s with the broken lights raining sparks for what seems like 10 minutes? Not to mention the fact that the sparks shower down on the basepaths, which are about 300 feet away from the lights.
  
  5. The “home run music” was okay. Just okay, not so great that it has to be used over and over, ad nauseam, at half the ballparks in the country.
  
  Very, very mediocre film, at best. Again, I just don’t understand why people rave about it.
  Rating: 1 / 5
• By charles pope on Mar 14, 2010

  Robert Reford’s dream of a baseball natural is absurd on many levels.I dont mind fantasy type films at all..HOWEVER, they have to have some characters that an audience can have some connection with.
  Roy can hit the cover off a baseball..and Mr. Brimley and co…drop their jaws in amazement. Roy can pitch better that Cy Young…and Mr. Brimley’s jaw also and again drops in amazement.
  ( hackneyed dialogue) How many ways can one say WOW!
  Many of the fine suppporting actors deliver their lines in amazement..( Robert Duvall etc). Using the game of baseball as a base for all the other insufferable nuances attempted by this film is truly sad indeed.

  Jimmy Piersall had nothing on Mr. Roy here! Mr. Reford has been out in the sun a bit too long..perhaps he should learn how to hit a cut off man from the outfield. Maybe he has kryptonite in his bat…you know the one he made as a kid…and still uses now to Nuke any baseball..thrown at him. Gosh…There are zero authentic… in tone baseball scenes..who cares…this film hits the triple crown for infantile dialogue, absurd staging and general hokum.

  There are many great fantasy films out there..this is not one of them.,…perhaps Mr. Reford,’next film will have Charles Van Doren pitching!!

  CP
  Rating: 1 / 5
• By T. Bratz on Mar 14, 2010

  I saw previews of this movie and thought it would be great. I love baseball and almost everything Robert Redford has ever done. After a very promising start, the movie just went way over the top and became almost a cartoon. Every time the guy hits a homerun the cover actually flies off the ball or he hits the lights, setting off fireworks or something else larger than life happens. I went into this movie with great expectations and left feeling like they blew it. If they hadn’t tried to make everything so much bigger than life the movie could have been a believable story.
  Rating: 1 / 5
• By Anonymous on Mar 14, 2010

  10 reasons this movie is horrid:

  1. It’s Bud Selig’s favorite. Enough said.

  2. Redford uses it to show his “youth” by putting vaseline on the camera lens. He looks ridiculous, old, and unathletic.

  3. They rip the book apart, change the real ending to a Hollywood joke, and basically insult anyone wiht an IQ above 50 (obviosuly, sportswriters not incldued in this group).

  4. Sportswriters love it (see # 3).

  5. Yah, these guys look like realistic athletes. Michale Madsen screams “mafia drug-addicted enforcer” not “ball player”.

  6. Robert Duvall, why oh why are you the stupidest reporter on the planet?

  7. Cheesy. Hokum. BS. Disney-fied. Get the idea?

  8. Kim Basinger does not equal femme fatal. She equals dumb blonde who can’t act.

  9. Did I mention the ending yet?

  10. This would begin a long line of “Robert Redford Does Heartfelt Hokey Drama” that annoys the dung out of all of us (Bagger Vance? Horse Whisperer? Let’s continue the list for the soccer moms and x-dominated males…)
  Rating: 1 / 5

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