Instead of the Higher, the Lower, instead of the Indians. Roger Dorn has one weakness: baseball. He's pretty old, so he can't play anymore, but that doesn't stop him from buying teams. Once Dorn was still a player of a major league team - he was recruited among other not quite understandable athletes in the Cleveland Indians. The motley gathering was supposed to be the laughing stock, but they were able to team up and win the regular championship against the evil team owner Rachel Phelps. All this can be seen in the sports comedy "Major League" in 1989. Roger Dorn then leaves the sport as a player and buys the Indians from Phelps, but his inability to do business normally leads to the fact that he was again forced to sell the team and the harmful Phelps returned there. This is already discussed in the film “Major League 2” in 1994. But Dorn does not give up his dream and now he is the owner of a new team “Bumblebees”, playing in the lower leagues. That's what we're talking about in 1998's Major League 3.
The script for this film was written by John Warren, who used characters invented by David S. Ward, the director of the first two Major Leagues. John Warren himself took the director's chair. This, by the way, the work in the cinema with Warren ended: “Major League 3” was his last film (no, he did not die, he retired only from business). So, Warren came up with the idea that this same Roger Dorn, who is played by Corbin Bernsen in all three parts of the Major League in winter, decides that it is necessary to call Gus Cantrell, a once strong player, and now a coach of not the highest category. Dorn thinks that Cantrell will be able to take the Bumblebees to a new level and to somehow lure and stimulate the new coach of the team, Dorn suggests that if the Bumblebees win the match against the major league team, Cantrell will become its coach. But how to create a team that is often composed of inexperienced players and veterans? We need to call those who once became the personification of the Cleveland Indians.
Corbyn Bernsen played Roger Dorn in all three parts of the franchise. I must say that Dennis Heisburt in the form of a once voodooist, and then a Buddhist Pedro Serrano, was also present in the entire trilogy. It was nice to see him on the screen, although his image finally “deflated” and nothing new fan of this comedy franchise will not get, only good nostalgia for the best times of “Cleveland Indians”. Together with Serrano, Japanese Taka Tanaka (Takaaki Ishibashi) returned to baseball. This hero is constantly in some kind of excitement, which often prevents him from concentrating on the field. So was Taka in the second Major League, and so he remained in the final part of the trilogy. Eric Brascotter came in from the second part, but his character is difficult to remember, even if you just finished watching the movie a minute ago, it is so invisible. But most of all, it was nice to see on the screen Bob Euker, who played throughout all three parts of the commentator Harry Doyle – this is a memorable type, which made me laugh several times when watching the movie “Major League 3”.
But among the new personalities of the main plan was awarded Scott Bakula. Especially large roles in the feature-length feature film, this actor did not have, but his small but noticeable episodes in the thriller Color of the Night (1994) and the drama American Beauty (1999) remained in memory. And now he had the opportunity to finally play the main role in the film, the name of which has already been promoted. It cannot be said that Bakula did not cope with his task, he looked quite convincingly in the image of a coach who, in the course of the action, really attached his whole heart to his team and its players, becoming a real mentor for them, leading them in the right direction. And it is not Bakula's fault that after all, "Major League 3" is still a film of the second category. We must remember that this film is a film about sports and events on the field should influence the overall impression of the picture, but the operator of the tape Tim Zurstedt failed to create an effect of inspiration, that is, for “Bumblebees” you “sick” only because of his players, especially if you were already familiar with them from previous films, but what is happening on the field turned out to be quite uninteresting.
In general, with this film, the trilogy stopped in time, because it is unlikely that it would repeat the success of the first film, especially since the second was not so sparkling and bright. And the universal favorite of Charlie Sheen in the image of Ricky Vaughn nicknamed Savage and Tom Berenger in the image of a status veteran Jake Taylor were not in the third “Major League”. And those who returned, plus those who joined them, could not adequately replace them. But the most important thing is that in “Major League 3” there is no euphoria obtained from sports achievements on the field, when the team is assembled into a single whole, even if it is all a screen fantasy.
5 out of 10