The Sandlot

THANKS to the boys of summer - nine wonderful child actors - and a sweetly nostalgic story well told by writer-director David Mickey Evans, The Sandlot is a winner. [9 Apr 1993, p.3F]

The Sandlot lays down life’s little lessons with the feathery touch of a sacrifice bunt. During the ball-retreiving scenes, as the gang learns to work as a team off the field, the movie never loses its quick pace or its sense of fun. Old baseball wisdom: The best teams win with strong fundamentals. So do the best movies. Read full review

This is a movie for anyone who has ever loved baseball and for anyone who enjoys the American Graffiti/Stand by Me style of narrative. Highly recommended. Read full review

These days too many children's movies are infected by the virus of Winning, as if kids are nothing more than underage pro athletes, and the values of Vince Lombardi prevail: It's not how you play the game, but whether you win or lose. This is a movie that breaks with that tradition, that allows its kids to be kids, that shows them in the insular world of imagination and dreaming that children create entirely apart from adult domains and values. Read full review

A solid double rather than a grand slam, The Sandlot remains a refreshing antidote to the daily round of contract squabbles on the sports page.

Until it lapses into a Rube Goldberg farce with a tacked-on, present-day epilogue, the movie is a wonderful reminder of why we've tried so hard to get major league baseball in Tampa Bay. [7 Apr 1993, p.5B]

That's what The Sandlot repeatedly does: Confound your expectations. It's a charming and hilarious flick for kids (boys in particular will eat it up) that feels remarkably fresh, even during its occasional foray into cliche land. [7 Apr 1993, p.E1]

Sandlot is no ''Stand By Me'' -- it lacks the dramatic, us-vs.- them power of that popular '80s film. The look is simple, direct, often gimmicky with the big dog purposely overdone as a clunky animatronic figure. The movie is also a little long. But somehow its contrived tone and style become minor charms. You walk away feeling that perhaps people aren't as mean as the movies make them out to be these days and that maybe there's hope after all. Or at least there was in 1962. [7 Apr 1993, p.C1]

A scruffy underdog yarn that will appeal not only to kids but also to their thirty- or fortysomething parents. Read full review

This rosy film is clearly not for the Peter Pan set: Even today’s younger viewers who aren’t eggheads may never have heard of a sandlot-much less the Sultan of Swat. The only thing they’ll revel in is replaying the slobbery-canine-confronting climax again and again. Read full review

Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) is ideally cast as the mom, and as the step-dad, Leary gets a break from his bad boy of MTV image. The Sandlot is truly one about the boys of summer. Read full review

There are those who will see this as a silly fantasy, but they have either missed or chosen not to feel the magic woven by The Sandlot. Predictable as the movie is, the Field of Dreams quality is not the only thing to like about The Sandlot. Read full review

At times it's laugh-out-loud funny. In this ode to the passing of childhood, circa 1962, screenwriter David Mickey Evans has partly succeeded in mythologizing something that everyone treasures: the proverbial perfect summer of youth. [7 Apr 1993]

Kids will understand this stuff. If you can remember your younger, goofier roots, so will you. Sandlot isn't well made but it's alive with dopey, summertime spirit. Read full review

This “Field of Dreams” field has been plowed so many times that the land is no longer arable. Isn’t it time to cultivate a few new cliches? Read full review

Nothing about his modest coming-of-age comedy demands anything like this awestruck approach. Read full review

The comedy is broad, cartoonish, and quite funny in a faux "Little Rascals" manner. The movie is almost completely derivative, but that's part of the fun. Read full review

In The Sandlot's nostalgia for simpler times, a single-sex world seems to be a key component. Read full review

This is definitely a post-"Field of Dreams" movie, at home in an era that specializes in building ersatz old parks, like the honey at Camden Yards. I love that place, even if it's more theme park than ball yard (I also love theme parks). But "The Sandlot" isn't a theme park or a ball yard; it's a con job. Read full review

It's lacking in eventfulness and drama, but there's a sweetness in it that places it a cut above most synthetic children's films. As a writer and director, Evans doesn't always know where to go with his material, but at least there's some feeling behind it, and this sometimes rescues it from its becalmed predictability. [7 Apr 1993, p.49]

It's hard to believe that a bunch of scrappy kids would really be scared of a big dog, which leaves the premise of this film floundering. However the kids prove to be plucky enough to give the film some kind of motivation but the direction lacks in humour or excitement. Read full review

Sweet and sincere, the film is also a remarkably shallow wade, rife with incident and slim on substance. Read full review

Chock-a-block with cute reminiscence - which is a shame, because if it weren't so knowing, this would be quite a likeable little comedy about nothing in particular. Read full review

Has enough dog slobber, curdled hurl and toe-jam jokes to keep its target audience amused. Older kids and overgrown ones too probably will notice that nothing much ever happens in this belabored suburban variation on "The Little Rascals." Read full review

After a "Porky's"-style segment dealing with puppy lust, the film then segues to its better second half, hitting its stride when a ball signed by the revered Babe Ruth must somehow be retrieved from behind the fence. Read full review

The Sandlot is so exploitative of the myth of baseball and rings so false as a nostalgia piece - and is so unfunny as a comedy - that it makes "The Bad News Bears" look like "Pride of the Yankees." [7 Apr 1993]

A baseball nostalgia piece all weirded-out by flashes of supernatural horror, this early-'60s remembrance is like sitting through a double bill of Field of Dreams and The Goonies. [7 Apr 1993, p.8D]