# Major League: Back to the Minors (1998)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

Perhaps having an easily identifiable title is all it takes to get a movie these days. How else to explain the rash of unnecessary and unappealing sequels - ``Odd Couple II,'' ``Species 2,'' ``Home Alone 3,'' etc. - currently congesting marquees?

Add ``Major League 3: Back To The Minors'' to that list. Granted, it's not as excruiating as ``Major League 2,'' but why continue this franchise, especially since Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Wesley Snipes, the guys who made the 1989 original work, have long since fled? In their place is a trio of tired-looking ex-TV stars: Scott Bakula (``Quantum Leap''), Ted McGinley (``Married With Children'') and Corbin Bernsen (``L.A. Law''), whose wardrobe of oversize jackets and baggy sweaters can't hide the fact the once-upon-a-time hunk should now be sporting an ``I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy'' bumper sticker.

The drabness of the leads sets the tone for the picture, which is not so much awful as it is awfully dull. Movies like ``Titanic'' weave vibrant, colorful tapestries; movies like ``Major League 3'' are as invigorating as watching Saran Wrap unroll.

Writer-director John Warren has torn several pages from ``Bull Durham'' without appropriating any of its humor, sexiness or human interest. Former major leaguer Gus Cantrell (Bakula) is talked into managing the Buzz, a very minor league team made up of quirky souls, such as an ex-ballet star who does arabesques on the field, a hoity-toity pitcher who laments the fact that backwoods diners don't serve balsamic vinegar, and one genuine talent in the form of ``Downtown'' Anderson (Walton Goggins, looking like Jim Carrey's rabid brother). You need not call the Psychic Friends to figure out Cantrell succeeds in turning this motley crew into a ball team to be reckoned with.

McGinley, in one of the most grating comic performances since Chris Tucker in ``Money Talks,'' plays Huff, the snobbish manager of the Minnesota Twins, a dork whose grudge against Cantrell leads to a showdown between the Twins and the Buzz in Minneapolis. Indicative of ``League 3'' 's skimpy budget, the ``crowd'' at the big game seems to number only a few hundred, barely enough to fill one section of seats in the stadium.

Those sad souls who can never get their fill of Bob Uecker will delight in his frequent appearances throughout the film, dropping such knee-slappers as ``they timed this kid's fastball with an hourglass'' and ``I've seen better hands on a clock.'' But the movie's sharpest insight goes to Huff: ``When you get major talent, you get major personalities.'' To elaborate on that line, you could say when you get major talent, you get ``Major League,'' and when you get major has-beens, you get ``Major League 3.''

    James Sanford

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