Despite what many believed, Disney Plus did not launch with every Disney movie ever made. Fans of movies like Air Bud and Angels in The Outfield found out they had to wait. Well, i waited. So, where’s the audio description? Disney is usually pretty good about making sure their own films, especially Disney theatrically branded content, has audio description. Some pretty random titles have it, and they can’t claim they didn’t know the debut of a 30 year old movie was coming. So, am i supposed to pray for accessibility? Is this some sort of meta lesson? Will Christopher Lloyd fly down and use his angels to deliver me necessary accessibility/
I really enjoyed this Disney film back in 1994, when i was a kid. Unlike watching Iron Will, where I was convinced I was watching some deep Oscar bait type film, Angels In The Outfield is pretty obvious about what it is, and uses a shockingly amazing cast to do it. We have a bevy of Oscar Nominees/Winners, including Brenda Fricker, Matthew MCConaughey, and Adrien Brody, plus some stars that feel like they should have been, like Danny Glover, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dermot Mulroney. It’s a film that tugs at the heart strings, featuring a young boy (Gordon-Levitt) who wants to be reunited with his father (Mulroney), who seems uninterested in being a dad, so his son stays in foster care. When he pushes his dad for a timeline, he says “when the Angels with the pennant”, which fuels him to pray for the Angels, leading one (Christopher Lloyd) to visit him and tell him the rules of how this wish works. Can God save this kids family?
Well, 1994 was a year that was progressive as hell, because no, God can’t make Dermot Mulroney do anything. But, he can set in motion a future found family for us to be excited about, in a film that celebrates the joys of adoption. Everyone wins. Along the way, this inspirational movie makes you feel good, while being entertaining, and oddly faith based. yes, it is a remake, but this one is better. I caught the original on TCM years ago, and it just had a completely different vibe. Disney put their magic on this, and it gives you a nice warm feeling… if you can see.
But, since not everyone can, this movie is sadly unwatchable without audio description. yeah, I can activate my memory and remember this from the numerous times I watched it as a kid, but the titular angels don’t talk. only Christopher Lloyd, so you have to have audio description to tell you what they are doing to help each of the players on the team every time. It’s a baseball game, so we miss having the game described. There’s a really inspirational moment where Gordon-Levitt has to convince a player he has an angel when he doesn’t, and get him to believe in himself, which sets out this chain reaction of the entire audience mimicking him. It is effective, but lost without description.
And those are big things. That isn’t just character descriptions, entrances and exits, location descriptions, or any of the really basic audio descritpion stuff. If the implication is that by not offering us accessibility for a title is the belief that we don’t need it, your belief system is fundamentally flawed, especially on this movie.
So, celebrating 30 years of a film I liked, with a grade I’d rather not give it, but there’s really no choice.
Final Grade: unwatchable