Long ago, when the world was in black-and-white, there was a sweet, if minor, fantasy film called Angels in the Outfield. It was a light weight concoction starring Paul Douglas as the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a gruff, but lovable, guy who discovers that his team full of stumble bums is suddenly, magically able to slug their way to victory. It was all due to angels, who could be seen only by one little girl.
In Disney's even less impressive remake of the movie, everybody can see the celestial beings — and as celestial beings go, they're pretty dull. (Angels shangels. They look more like the cast of one of those Fox TV shows with a zip code for a title.) Sometimes the unseen should be just that, and remain a provocative piece of the viewer's imagination.
The new version of Angels in the Outfield never succeeds in becoming anything more than low-grade Capra-corn. Danny Glover plays the manager of the L.A. Angels, a team that can't play any better than the Pirates could 40 years ago. This time, it's a boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who finds himself acting as a go-between when a heavenly band of utility infielders intrudes into the pennant race.
Even in its original version, this story provided only mild entertainment, and the new production often moves slower than the bottom of the ninth stretch. There's also one point that neither version of the tale deals with very well, which is the subplot involving the looming public disgrace of the manager, when word gets out that he believes in angels.
Which is where the story becomes truly ludicrous. Let's face it, anybody who's familiar with sports knows that as long as the team is winning, nobody cares if the manager stands buck naked at homeplate and talks to Martians. Anything goes if it produces a winning streak.
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