The Sandlot

This was not quite as good as I remembered it. It’s still a nice little movie, but some of it seemed to be way over the top. I understand, of course, that this story, of a group of boys who play ball in a sandlot and are terrified of a monstrous dog who lives behind a fence and devours lost baseballs, is seen through the eyes of a young boy. Thus, everything is exaggerated, and that’s fine. It doesn’t bother me that they cobble together a huge crane from and old Erector set in about five minutes. It’s funny, like the Our Gang little rascals who could build a car out of random junk. It doesn’t bother me that the dog, seen only partially until the very end, is portrayed as being about the size of a T. Rex. (When he escapes and chases them, he’s big, a super-slobbery English Mastiff about the size of a Shetland pony, but not gargantuan. And the ending, when they meet the dog’s owner, is heart-warming. It’s just that there were too many scenes where all the boys are standing still with their mouths wide open, screaming. One or two? Fine. A dozen? Overdone.