There must be a wave of nostalgia for ‘90s Nickelodeon Live-Action comedy. How else to explain the high IMDb rating and awards (from sports, kids & Latino niche film fests) for this condescending kiddie film about the clueless nephew of a baseball legend (the first Dominican in the Majors), who time-travels from 2002 to 1957, to witness his Uncle’s debut game. Suddenly stuck in the past thru a fluke in antique technology (a reel-to-reel tape recorder that holds the old radio broadcast), he’ll need to recreate the exact setup & circumstances to get back to his 2002 ‘present.’ Sounds cute, if awfully derivative, but with good opportunities to spotlight progress in social/racial attitudes, technology & pro ball; all largely missed. Those not missed, dumbed-down for 7-yr olds . . . back-of-the-class 7-yr olds. At least we don’t have to put up with that Nickelodeon laughtrack mechanically chortling when the nephew proves so baseball-ignorant he thinks players wear tights and kick the ball. On the other hand, we do have to put up with Nickelodeon’s negligible production values & amateur indicative acting. (The techno-savvy girl he meets in the past a particular horror.) Making their feature debut, co-directors Jonathan Coria & Trevor Wilson couldn’t have imagined film school studies would lead to making a modern equivalent of a 1960s charm-free/force-fed Disney-style family-friendly write-off.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: While parallels to BACK TO THE FUTURE/’85 are obvious, a better model would have been PLEASANTVILLE/’98. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/10/pleasantville-1998.html
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