Clunky, Dated Story with Nice Costumes

Rating: 3/10 (21 December 2005)

I figured how bad could it be to watch Matt Damon and Charlize Theron for two hours in "The Legend of Bagger Vance"? And I have a fondness for sports romances.
But the movie feels like it was made in 1939, complete with the smiling darkie servant (Will Smith).
Damon and Therize were supposed to have been affianced in 1916, went through very good-looking hell of war and the Depression, and are reunited in 1931, well, gee, then by how they look they must have been 10 in 1916. Damon's just another Robert Redford Golden Boy and has nowhere the appropriate washed-up athlete look that Kevin Costner had in "Tin Cup," a much better golf movie.
Theron gets to be The Girlfriend Who Wears a Different Gorgeous Period Outfit in Every Camera Shot. She shows a bit of spunk, as does Damon, in the washed-up beginning, but the whole thing loses pazzazz during the match.
Redford seems to think that golf can be invested with the same magic as baseball in "The Natural" and can be a stand-in for American idealism as baseball is in "Field of Dreams." On a segregated country club golf course??
The rest of the audience loved it, cheering and clapping at each of the character's successes. I had trouble staying awake
Not enough use is made of period music to match the costumes.
(originally written 11/5/2000)