Jake Taylor may not have been the one given the best lines in Major League, but he was the heart and soul of the team and the movie (and writing that did not feel like a cliché). It was Taylor who melded the team together off the field and on the field on his gimpy knees ran out the surprise bunt (after the brilliant called shot to field) and suggested the play that Willie “Mays” Hayes score from second. Taylor also got to bed an in her prime Rene Russo which was likely of a higher quality than he was finding in the Mexican League. Overall, we wish he never signed on for Major League 2, as the conversion to Interim Manager was unlikely and the decision to keep him in the franchise seemed contrived. Granted, at Tom Berenger’s advanced age, it made sense, but surely there had to be a better use for him…or maybe don’t use him at all.
When we watched Jack Parkman in Major League 2, we subconsciously wondered if his anger was residual affect from being jilted in “An Officer and a Gentleman”. Lame joke aside, Major League II was clearly not as good as the original but we enjoyed and bought David Keith as the arrogant slugger who coined a Ricky Vaughn pitch as the “Masturbator”. Although we were not supposed to like Parkman as the bad guy, he was a bit of a guilty pleasure.
This is kind of a shame for a few reasons. The first being that Tom Selleck in 1992 looked every bit the part of an aging slugger and could have been in a better film as opposed to the clichéd racism that he was in here. As Jack Elliott, Selleck entered the world of Japanese Baseball and the attempt at outdated humor began. Frankly, Selleck deserved better, and so did the movie going public. Maybe that movie would have worked a decade before, but for every year that passes, this film becomes more and more offensive. However, can we give him a pass because it’s Magnum P.I.?
Just to make sure we understand this correctly….Matt LeBlanc decided that his first movie while at the height of his television fame during Friends was to play second fiddle to a chimpanzee? Did his agent tell him it worked for Eastwood; who may we state is the only man who could get away with that? At least his character name of “Deuce” was appropriate because that is what this movie was a stinking pile of. This is a role beneath even Joey Tribiani.
