“Gabe,” you must be asking: “why are you writing this and why right now?” Excellent question. To be perfectly honest, I would have preferred to save this idea for a later time, but I didn’t actually think of the idea until after I had already watched the original Angels in the Outfield. I watched it mostly because I was curious – by IMDB ratings and the few reviews it has, it suggested it was worth watching. I had seen the remake, but not in at last 20 years. I kind of assumed it would be the same
movie, and it wasn’t at all. So I instantly wanted to compare it to the remake, which of course demanded I watch the remake as well. If I waited for a more appropriate time for this post, well I would have to rewatch the original. I liked the original more than I expected, but to use a term from The Ringer – it’s not really a Rewatchable type of movie. So it had to be posted while it was fresh in my mind. Hence the weird timing.
The original (Spoilers if you want to watch it)
The original movie is actually about the Pittsburgh Pirates, because the Angels didn’t actually exist yet. At least not in the majors, pretty sure there was a minor league team named the Angels. The Pirates at the time hadn’t had a winning record since 1948, and the next season they would win 42 games. They wouldn’t have a winning record until the 1958 season. So they picked a perennial loser team to magically turn around.
This movie, especially because I vaguely remembered the remake, has an extremely strange structure. We start by following a reporter, who is of course a beautiful woman played by Janet Leigh. Because 1951 audiences would be very confused about a woman reporter covering baseball, it is of course not her regular beat – I forgot the exact name because this isn’t really a feature of the newspaper anymore, but her normal beat was clearly tailored towards housewives – and she covers the foul-mouthed manager and she has a popular piece lambasting the manager and they have her keep covering the Pirates because of it.
So right off the bat, there’s no reporter equivalent in the remake. I thought we were going to follow the reporter, but the perspective then shifts to the foul-mouthed manager. And I’ll give the movie credit here – them substituting his foul language for indecipherable yelling was a clever way around the Hays Code. Then after another loss, he walks out to the field in the dark, and an angel just starts talking to him, telling him to stop swearing and fighting, and they’ll help him win.
So this is extremely random. The remake has a way better hook, no matter what you think of it. Why are the Angels interested in helping this miserable dude? I guess the ending provides the reason, but there’s kind of still a why this guy quality to the movie. So he listens, they help, a little girl goes to the game one time and claims to see an angel. The press gets involved, and the story blows up. If you have only seen the remake, it will seriously blow your mind how much of a role the press plays in this story. A reporter is one of the three main characters.
Anyway, the manager is kind of mad that the reporter helped blow up the story, but he ends up accidentally confirming he hears angels too after he gets hit in the head by a line drive, clearly concussed. For some odd reason, the hometown announcer with a grudge against the manager for some reason has enough pull to get the manager investigated for his ability to lead the team. This guy got hit in the head by a line drive, and an off-hand comment directly after that happened turns into a full-blown 10-minute hearing (in movie time! I’m sure it was much longer) on basically his sanity. The structure of this movie is really, really bizarre.
The manager ends up seeing the kid a few times, takes a liking to her, the reporter feels bad about blowing up the angel story, so next thing you know, it kind of turns into a family unit. I don’t remember the exact steps it took, but reasonably well done. Except for one small thing. The manager looks like Paul Douglas and the reporter looks like Janet Leigh. You never can quite get over that. I was in disbelief that early 20s Janet Leigh would ever be interested in overweight, foul-mouthed 44-year-old Paul Douglas. Who unfortunately would die at just 52-years-old and not to be too rude to the guy but…. it was not surprising he didn’t have 10 more years on this Earth watching this movie. 44 and 24 isn’t especially heinous to believe, especially at the time, but I have to remind everyone that he does not look like a 44-year-old actor in 2026. He could pass for 60 nowadays easy.
And to be perfectly fair to Douglas, his wife at the time was out of his league, so the real life version of him had ‘game,’ but the way the movie portrays Douglas, that dude would have zero game. Douglas isn’t really miscast and Leigh isn’t really miscast, but the original choice of Clark Cable makes waaaay more sense if you’re going to shoehorn a romance into this. That I can buy. Douglas was borderline too convincing at being a grumpy, mean-spirited loner which again to be fair to him, definitely did a better job than Gable would have on that part. They would have sanded off the edges with Gable. But I would absolutely have zero questions about Gable and Leigh.
And the movie kind of knows this, because boy does it dance around any semblance of romance between the two. She basically just starts cooking for him and the kid and it’s just kind of implied. If it were a modern movie and you filmed it exactly the same way, you would probably assume they were friends or something. There’s not really even a hint that they kissed or anything, except they clearly all live together in the end. This was definitely the right approach given who was cast.
The movies’ baseball scenes are actually kind of great. They had actual baseball players playing baseball. Ralph Kiner and a bunch of real Pirates players you’ve never heard of are really playing baseball. There are cameos from Ty Cobb (before the reporter with a vendetta against him made him poison), minority owner of the Pirates Bing Crosby, and Joe Dimaggio all commenting on the angels helping the Pirates.
Also a strong ending as well, because the angels abandon the Pirates for the last game, because the manager broke his promise about swearing and fighting. So he puts all his faith in a washed up pitcher who has to just gut it out and because it’s 1951, he lets him throw a complete game and it’s interesting how sort of modern the outside commentary is because nobody expects him to throw that many innings and everyone wants him taken out in the 9th, especially when he allows baserunners. Smart choice.
So it’s family friendly, it’s charming enough, and the baseball itself is great and convincing. And because the baseball is pretty well done, if you’re into baseball history, it is kind of interesting to get a little glimpse of maybe what it would be like as a fan in 1951 watching baseball. So that was cool. The structure is very weird, the romance is implausible, and while I think the character clearly changes, it’s not super believable that he would actually adopt a kid – I think he even says this when it’s very much not a sure thing that Janet Leigh will be the mom. Some suspension of disbelief is required, ironically, in the non-baseball parts of the movie.
Solid 2.5/4 stars
The remake
Okay whoever first thought of this idea must have realized it made sense to make it about the Angels this time and rightfully thought it being from the kid who sees angels perspective made more sense as a hook. Interestingly, the Pirates won the World Series 9 years after the 1951 version came out, and the Angels won it 8 years after this one came out.
Alright let’s get the cat of the bag: this movie doesn’t understand baseball at all. This movie got bad reviews because the baseball scenes SUCK. I don’t mind that you can see the angels – found that a weird complaint whenever I came across people talking about the old movie – they would have shown the angels in 1951 if the technology was there. 100 percent. That movie was not ambiguous about the fact that the angels were real, so you can’t really play the pretend “because it didn’t show the angels, it’s a more plausible movie.”
However, the remake does make the angel interventions way less believable. Everyone would believe there were angels impacting the game with how insanely impossible some of the baseball scenes are. They have a centerfielder literally floating to make a diving catch and a guy completely shatters his bat and hits a long homer. I’m guessing the writers or director were not aware at how unlikely a homer would be with a shattered bat.
Then perhaps my biggest baseball-specific grievance, the great decision to pinch hit Adrien Brody for the team’s best hitter. Brody is a utility infielder with a terrible bat. There are three outs to work with in the 9th. Why in god’s name does this movie act like he had to pinch hit for Mitchell? Does the angel benefit somehow not apply if he’s not making a completely illogical move? And then the pitching team commits 10+ errors on one play, but the ball moves on its own and like seriously everyone would believe in a higher power helping the Angels at this point.
And then Tony Danza is a washed up pitcher who the announcer claims hasn’t pitched in this decade, which would be five seasons. Joseph-Gordon Levitt sees an angel by him, says he has to start him, and Danny Glover rightfully points out that he’s not on the active roster. And then the movie ignores this – the game is clearly starting in 10 minutes – and he’s somehow allowed to pitch. Oh yeah and the movie is clearly unaware of what rehab is, because he just pitches in his first live competition against real batters in I guess five years, and yeah I know the angels help him out, but could this movie at least pretend to know anything about baseball.
I’ll get the negatives out of the way first, but I kind of hate the score. This movie got called cheesy, and it is, but a movie like this will have a certain amount of sentimentality and cheese anyway, but the baseball scenes and the score are like 95 percent of the reason it was too much. It doesn’t really feel much like a Disney movie except the score makes sure to tell you it’s a Disney movie.
What does the movie do well? The non-baseball scenes. The plot gets kickstarted, because JGL’s dad (played by Dermot Mulroney) is a real piece of crap and is clearly planning on abandoning him, and he’s in the process of doing it legally. With the Angels in last place, he says they’ll be a family again when the Angels win the pennant. But we the audience, at least as adults, know this guy has no intention of being a father no matter what the Angels do. But JGL prays for it to happen and boom the plot kicks in.
Danny Glover, perfectly cast I might add, ends up finding out the boy is some sort of magic good luck charm, and having nothing to lose, puts him in the seat next to the dugout so he can tell him when angels appear. Totally something a last place, superstitious manager might do without having to believe in angels (he does end up believing).
So they bond together, Danny Glover softens up, JGL’s dad makes it official that he is a waste of space and Glover decides to abandon his important meeting with the owner to make dinner for the two kids on the day JGL finds out his dad doesn’t want him. Disney-fied, but fairly well done stuff. And then this movie finally has some decent baseball scenes at the end when the angels are not allowed to get involved because it’s a championship game. Although it still involves stuff like everybody thinking Glover is gonna pull Danza out of the game on a 3-2 count. Seriously someone involved in this has no clue about baseball.
Weirdly, the movie decides to be very faithful to the original for the end, even including giving Tony Danza 6 months to live, making this the last hurrah of his career and life. It made more sense in the original for the manager to know this, I don’t know why Al told a little kid who recently found out his dad didn’t want him that one of his favorite pitchers was going to die in 6 months, but hey that’s just me. Seriously, why is he telling this little kid that Tony Danza is gonna die? He doesn’t need to know that! They add the waving of the arms for this one, which eh probably worked like gangbusters on me as a kid.
The real reason to watch this as an adult is the casting is un freaking believable. This is a perfectly casted movie. You have JGL, who was a good kid actor, and thank god because these type of movies are completely reliant on the kid being able to act. Tony Danza is honestly great in this movie as the washed-up has-been who suddenly gets the help of angels. Neal McDonough, always great, has a sneaky hard part, being mostly comic relief in sort of a Three Stooges way, but kind of steals every scene he’s in. Jay O. Sanders is fantastic as the slimy announcer. Christopher Lloyd was honestly a better choice than the original pick, Leslie Nielsen. In my opinion. Nielsen was great at the straight man while wacky stuff happens, but that’s not really what this part is.
I could go on. Adrien Brody and Matthew McConaughey have nothing parts as members of the team. Brenda Fricker, who you probably better know as Dove Lady on Home Alone 2 – hits all the right notes. I even feel like the owner was perfectly cast. Seriously, unbelievable job by the casting director. This movie should actually be worse than it is, but the performances make it better than it should be.
This cast is so good that I even believe Danny Glover would adopt the kids. He’s not exactly softened from the original, but Danny Glover has this special ability to be grumpy and frustrated in an entertaining way and still seeming like a good person. Couldn’t have picked a better actor for this role. There’s a genuinely good movie in here somewhere with this cast, but it’s held back by the baseball scenes and frankly Disney.
2/4 stars (it’s probably worse than this, but eh childhood nostalgia)
Last thoughts
So the first movie is a better movie, mostly because it seems to understand baseball. I’m writing this for a bunch of diehards, so that is somewhat essential. But it kind of chooses a bizarre structure for its movie and I think the off the field stuff, while charming, doesn’t really make you care as much as, oh I don’t know, a kid who just wants his dad back. I know there’s a little kid in the original, but it doesn’t really do a great job at making you care. The nuns are simply delightful, so she’s in a great place already. I didn’t mention it above, but one of the very charming things about this movie is the nuns being big baseball fans. I don’t know why, but I just love when movies do things like that. I just love what I’ll term the unexpected fan. I always get a huge kick out of that, in real life or movies.
The remake of the remake by the way should be about the Colorado Rockies. You got to pick a long suffering franchise and hey wacky stuff happens in Coors Field already, that can be built into the script easily. This may be a hokey premise that is hard to make good, but honestly they should make the baseball scenes better and maybe lean more into how dark the story actually is. I mean you don’t need to make it bleak, but like…. the plot of this movie is that this kid’s mother died somewhat recently and his dad doesn’t want him. Woof. I mean Field of Dreams is a beloved movie, some supernatural entity influencing events is clearly not a dealbreaker for a baseball movie.
