1st watched 5/15/2007 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Arthur Hiller): Well done depiction of baseball hero Babe Ruth with perfectly cast John Goodman in the title role who plays him with just the right amount of jollyness with the unexpected shows of vulnerability that seems to make sense for a man who lived like he did. He was abandoned as a young child by his parents supposedly because he was "bad" and grew up in a Catholic boys school with no real mother or father. He gained a skill while in the school and became an excellent baseball player. So much so, that a major league baseball team adopted him when he became a young adult. He was then traded promptly to the Boston Red Sox and his excellent baseball history began and then continued with the New York Yankees, where he was nicknamed the Bronx bomber or the Bambino and the stadium was then called "The House that Ruth Built." Between all of this, he married, divorced, re-married, caroused the bars, treated the kids who came to the games with love and did everything BIG. Kelly McGillis is excellent as the Babe's 2nd love interest and the one who really accepted him for who he was(as bizarre as some of his antics were). His famed visit to the children's hospital promising the sick child two home runs and coming thru with it and his heralded calling out of the home run to center field in the World Series is also depicted as expected. The movie also included little things like him not getting any money from the Baby Ruth candy bar company when they obviously named it after him. All of these things combine into a very entertaining and well put together movie by director Arthur Hiller. Sure, it's not as hard-nosed as it could have been but I think this was the kind of movie that should have been made about this larger-than-life baseball legend, especially with the lighter John Goodman in the lead role.
