The Babe (1992)

“You are the best, you are the best there’s ever been. ” – Johnny Sylvester

Number of Times Seen – Twice (Cable in the 90’s and 23 Apr 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Biopic of one of the greatest baseball players of all time who’s personal life never managed to match his professional one.

My Take on it – As a baseball fan, I was looking forward to seeing this film again after more than 25 years.

I didn’t recall much about the movie which helped me get a very fresh new look at the movie.

Unfortunately this is a really weak biopic that shows many of the reasons why he had so much trouble in his personal life yet at the same time they never try to find a way to explain to the viewer why.

This is a shame because that might have helped the viewer feel a stringer connection to the character of Babe Ruth instead of it all feeling much too superficial.

The story seems very rushed here and they never manage to spend enough time at each interval in his life to give us more than a speedy overview of each of these events.

Perhaps if the movie was longer, they would have been able to expand on many of these events and give us a much meatier plot than the one we actually get here.

The failure to focus on many of these events is quite detrimental to the story and it all seems as if they just skimmed things by trying to give us the Cliff Notes of his life.

John Goodman seems like the perfect choice on paper to play the character of the Babe, but something constantly fees off by the way he does it.

This film has far too much wasted potential and it’s such a shame.

Bottom Line – Pretty weak biopic that is able to show some of Ruth’s problematic personality traits but rushes through the story too quickly which is a shame because we never truly get a chance to try and understand the character. Goodman is perfectly cast in the role but something still feels off the entire time with his performance. The film is much too short and skims over his life without finding a way to focus on some of the more integral and important points in his life. So much watched potential here.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – When interviewed during production of the film, John Goodman noted the irony of having to lose weight to play the part of Ruth. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)