I love this movie, the first is always the best

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 2001)

Major League invented the modern day sports film formula. That formula goes as follows: take a team of any sport that is doing really horrible, add a bunch of misfit players with screwball personalities, spend most of the film showing how they have hidden talent, spend what's left of the film showing them kicking everybody's asses, then go into a big "ending game" where they win. Now, we have seen this formula a thousand times. This is quite possibly the most copied and repeated formula ever created because all the movies that use it are exactly the same, only with a different sport and characters with different quirks. What are some movies like this? Well, there's Necessary Roughness, Major League 2 & 3, The Replacements, all those Mighty Ducks movies, and, ummm, about 500 others that I can't think of right now. Just trust me, there are enough clones of this movie to make those anti- stem cell people wet their pants.
What makes Major League different is that is was first (but, if I'm wrong about this, please correct me). To my knowledge, it was the first movie to use this exact formula. Now comedic sports movies have existed since Edison's day, but Major League was the first to do this. And I think it's the best. What makes it better than the clones with the same formula is talent. This film is filled with it. Charlie Sheen playing a pot smoking, car stealing, punk, which is, well, himself. Tom Berrigner before he started making straight to video films (what happened to him? The guy's nominated for an Oscar, then he's flipping burgers at McDonalds. Since when does it work like that?) Renne Russo in her first film, I think. Dennis Haysbert is hilarious as the voodoo man Pedro, my favorite character in the film. Wesley Snipes is great and pretty much unnoticed in this film. Had this movie been made today, he would have gotten top billing, but this was before he was famous.
If I had to pick one thing about this movie that I don't like, it would have to be the routine "big game at the end". The movie is hilarious up to this point, when it gets serious. It's like someone hits the brakes when you're going 80 down the interstate, in what I call comedic whiplash. This happens in a lot of movies (remember Space Cowboys?). But Major League just gets too serious too quickly. But that's my only gripe and it hurts me to say it because I love this little movie.
Yep, I love this movie. It's very close to my heart. It hasn't got the big laughs of some movies, it isn't filled with comedians, it isn't crude, racist, or blasphemous (not that I really care); but it is funny and it has heart. It's just a fun, good ol movie. In fact, I have yet to meet a person who didn't like it. Now I can't say that about the clones.
Rating: Probably a 7 or an 8. Somewhere in that area.