Jensen Daggett | Through the Shattered Lens

Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), the former third baseman for the Cleveland Indians, is the new owner of the Minnesota Twins. There’s a hotshot hitter playing for the Buzz, the Twins’s Minor League affiliate. Downtown Anderson (Walton Goggin) can hit the ball over the fences but he still needs to learn about teamwork before he’ll be ready to move up to the majors. Roger recruits an old friend, an aging pitcher named Gus Cantrell (Scott Bakula), to manage the Buzz and mentor Downtown. Under Gus’s leadership, the Buzz starts winning games. Even some former Indians, like Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) and Taka Tanaka (Takaaki Ishibashi), are recruited to play for the Buzz. When the manager of the Twins, Leonard Huff (Ted McGinley), insults Gus and the Buzz over dinner, Gus challenges the Twins to an exhibition game, the minors against the majors. Huff accepts the challenge.

I had always heard that Major League: Back To The Minors was the worst of three Major League films but I liked it. It wasn’t as good as the first one but it wasn’t as boring as the second one. A lot of it has to do with the cast, who give it their all. Walton Goggins is great as the cocky Downtown Anderson but really, all of the actors playing entire team did a good job. They’re all misfits, of course. I especially liked Doc (Peter Mackenzie), a medical student-turned-pitcher who has the slowest fastball in the game. This movie had a little of the warmth and insider humor that made the first Major League film so special. It’s an underdog story, with the minor league players proving that they’re just as good as the spoiled players in the big leagues.

I didn’t find the idea of an exhibition game between the Twins and the Buzz to be believable. In the movie, they actually play two games against each other and they both take place during the regular season. When did they find the time to play each other? I guess they gave up one of their travel days but it still doesn’t seem like something that would happen.

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. It helped that I love baseball. And I love the minor leagues, even if they don’t get the same respect as the majors. Some of the best baseball I’ve ever seen has been in minor league games. They may not have the huge contracts but they’ve got the talent, they’ve got something to prove, and they’ve got the love of the game.

Continuing my review of the Friday the 13th film franchise, today I find myself reviewing the 8th film in the series, 1989’s Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. As opposed to my previous reviews, this is going to be a short one because, quite honestly, there’s not that much you can say about this film.

As I discussed in my reviews of both Jason Lives and The New Blood, Jason Takes Manhattan is the product of Paramount’s attempts to revive the Friday the 13th franchise by adding in a gimmick. This time, the gimmick is pretty much spelled out in the title. Jason leaves Crystal Lake, goes to Manhattan, and maybe even get a chance to make his Broadway debut in a revival of Forever Plaid. Seriously, you look at that title and you imagine that Jason going up agaisnt the Taxi Driver and or maybe taking Al Neri’s place as Michael Corleone’s personal bodyguard. Unfortunately, as is detailed in Peter Bracke’s excellent book Crystal Lake Memories, any plans for truly having Jason take Manhattan were abandoned when it became apparent just how expensive it would be to film in New York. As a result, this film is less Jason Takes Manhattan and more Jason Floats Around Aimlessly Until He Somehow Ends Up In Times Square For Two Minutes.

And, in the film’s defense, Jason Takes Manhattan is a catchier title.

As Jason Takes Manhattan begins, we find Jason (played again by Kane Hodder) once again coming back to life as the result of his corpse floating into an underwater power line. Or something like that. To be honest, it’s kind of hard to figure out just why exactly Jason has come back to life. All that matters is that Jason comes back to life and ends up stowing away on a cruise ship that is carrying the graduating class of Lakeview High to New York City. Needless to say, Jason is soon killing everyone on the boat, most of whom apparently die off-screen. (Either that or Lakeview High had a graduating class of 12 students.) The few who survive the massacre (including aspiring final girl Jensen Daggett and her boyfriend Scott Reeves) end up in a row boat and float around aimlessly until they arrive in New York. But guess who is waiting for them in the city that never sleeps?

Several critics consider Jason Takes Manhattan to be the worst Friday the 13th of all time. While I still think that Part 3 is the worst of the series, Jason Takes Manhattan is still pretty bad. Among the film’s many flaws: 1) characters that are underwritten even by the standards of the slasher genre, 2) bloodless kills that, for the most part, fail to make much of an impact, 3) very little of the action actually takes place in New York, and 4) this film features perhaps the most ludicrous and nonsensical ending to be found in a series of films that were famous for their refusal to make sense.

Still, Jason Takes Manhattan is not a total disaster. Jensen Daggett and Scott Reeves make a cute couple and Kane Hodder, as always, makes for an intimidating Jason. As well, even though very little of the film takes place in New York, just the idea of Jason actually taking Manhattan is amusing enough to be occasionally effective. If nothing else, the title inspires you to imagine a better film than the one that you’re watching.

Jason Takes Manhattan was the lowest grossing of the Friday the 13th movies. It’s disappointing box office performance would lead to Paramount selling the franchise to New Line Cinema and to a major change in the character of Jason Vorhees. That’ll all be dealt with tomorrow when I review Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday.