Daniel Stern should stick to comic roles, since this film makes clear that he has no talent for directing. It's hard to tell whether the acting is as bad as it seems here, or whether it was Stern's amateurish oversight that made every line go clunk. To make matters worse, there is not a single frame in which the action, such as it is, feels emotionally authentic. This problem is exacerbated by a camera that lingers for too long on each and every shot, especially the numerous and increasingly tiresome slow-motion scenes.
Stern appears in the film himself, hamming it up so badly that he actually makes co-actor Gary Busey look pretty good. With respect to the way balls are hit, caught and pitched, and base paths are run, the game played in this film evokes real baseball about as well as William Bendix did on the mound in "The Babe Ruth Story".
I was eager to see this movie because the 1954 original, "Roogie's Bump," was one of my favorites as a kid. Too bad the effort fell so flat. Along with the Danny Glover version of "Angels in the Outfield," "Rookie of the Year" stands as one of the least accomplished remakes of a baseball classic.
Stern appears in the film himself, hamming it up so badly that he actually makes co-actor Gary Busey look pretty good. With respect to the way balls are hit, caught and pitched, and base paths are run, the game played in this film evokes real baseball about as well as William Bendix did on the mound in "The Babe Ruth Story".
I was eager to see this movie because the 1954 original, "Roogie's Bump," was one of my favorites as a kid. Too bad the effort fell so flat. Along with the Danny Glover version of "Angels in the Outfield," "Rookie of the Year" stands as one of the least accomplished remakes of a baseball classic.