Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely brilliant

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Blistering performances.

(Flash Review)I figured I'd clear this out of my streaming queue in honor of baseball's opening week. Not what I expected for a plot but that's good and it kept me moderately engaged throughout. Even with some cliché story arcs. Amusing little plot of an arrogant ballplayer (think Barry Bonds) who gets base hit #3,000 and immediately retires even with his team in a pennant chase. Getting to 3,000 typically punches your ticket to the hall of fame. Several years later, a statistical error takes away 3 of his hits before he get into the HoF. At age 47, he attempts a comeback to collect three more hits and prove he is HoF worthy. Can he do it!? And of course will he learn to be humble and more friendlier? There are actually a couple nice little twists, telegraphed yes, but made for an above average story. Certainly won't win any awards but it was better than I imagined.

Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) is Mr. 3000, an arrogant, cocky, selfish baseball superstar that wants nothing more than to be enshrined in the baseball hall of fame. After getting his 3000th hit, Ross unceremoniously quits the team in the middle of the season, thinking his place in history is assured. But after nine years he still has not been voted into the hall of fame, furthermore a statistical correction brings his hit total down to 2997. Ross finds this unacceptable and comes out of retirement at age 47 to reclaim his 3 lost hits.The movie has potential but spends so much time establishing Ross as an arrogant jackass that it becomes almost impossible to sympathize or root for the character in his quest for greatness. For a movie that is supposed to be a comedy, the jokes are few and far between, and they aren't especially memorable when they do show up. The whole plot of the movie is ripe for comedic payoff but the movie never really delivers. About an hour into the film it seems as if Ross is heading in a direction that the audience can get behind, hoping the protagonist will turn over a new leaf and become worthy of a spot in the hall of fame, but then he backslides and becomes a jerk again.To be effective as a comedy there needs to be humor, which is lacking in the film. To be a feel good movie, you need to be able to root for Ross, which you can't do for almost the entire film because he is portrayed as such a self-centered egomaniac. The film is trying to be both but sadly doesn't succeed in either case. Establishing Ross a a jerk early would have been effective and easily done with a minimum of time and energy, instead the movie dug a deep, dark hole for the hero that he couldn't quite climb out of.

There's not a lot if indeed anything new here, a sort of sub-Disney quasi-fantasy throwing a curve at Redemption with side trips into heart of darkness territory and all as subtle as a swastika on a neo-Nazi's shirt. In terms of storyline Bernie Mac plays a slugger with the Milwaukee Brewers who secures his 3000th hit towards the close of the season and promptly walks leaving his team and teammates in the lurch. In the following nine years he parlays his Mr 3000 sobriquet into a chain of cash-cow franchises but this is not enough for an arrogant son of a bitch who wants all the badges and specifically a nod by the Hall of Fame. It then transpires that due to a computer glitch he only actually hit 2997 so at age 47 he attempts a come-back to chase the three elusive extra hits and get back into old flame Angela Basset's pants. There's a twist in case any amoeba with special needs didn't see it coming and the whole thing has a certain faux feelgood quality but don't go out of your way.

This film is the result of a wandering, aimless plot accompanied by non-existent acting by the entire cast except Bernie Mac, who only barely manages to come out of this with his reputation intact. Mr 3000 is a "comedy" (yeah, right) about a retired baseball player who upon striking his 3000th run quits his team at their height of prominence which cripples the teams chances of winning the league. Decades later, the Hall of Fame committee take away three of those so Mac's Stan Ross returns, determined to reach his goal.The problems begin almost straight away, first there is a random ex-girlfriend who appears whenever the plot requires her to and literally from the very first scene between the two you will already know what will happen. Then there is the fact that the story doesn't go anywhere. Seriously you see Stan drinking in a bar, then talking to his old flame, then playing in a game, and then back to scene 1. There are plot twists to which there is no explanation, and characters attitudes will suddenly chance without reason.I'd say I saw around 85 minutes of this pointless film before finally giving up. There was no plot, no acting and very little comedy. Although I will admit I smiled once at a scene where Ross was put through training. Don't waste your time on this, if baseball is your thing then watch the incredible 61*.